International Women’s Day celebrations held at Government College for Women, MA Road, Srinagar witnessed some major announcements being made by the Government for empowering the girl students and women of J&K.
Lieutenant Governor, Manoj Sinha announced the launch of the Super-75 scholarship scheme to support the education of meritorious girls belonging to poor families, so that they can excel in streams like Medicine, Engineering, ITI and Humanity, and contribute to nation-building. The Lt Governor also announced a new scheme – Tejaswini under Mission Youth, to provide financial assistance of Rs 5 lakhs to the girls between the age group of 18 to 35 years to start their business. Mission Youth will provide 10 % of the project cost and will also pay the interest every year, said the Lt Governor.
The Lt Governor called upon the women entrepreneurs to reap maximum benefit out of this zero interest scheme and spread the word so that other women can also avail of the benefits and take a leap towards their economic empowerment.
A new era of change and development is ushering in J&K, a change that will provide women their rightful place, a voice, an identity, and individuality. We are making tireless efforts to ensure women’s safety, modern education, and economic independence, the Lt Governor maintained.
Acknowledging women’s role in the economic development of J&K, the Lt Governor stressed the need to put more focus on some key areas like creating a positive environment; skill development of women entrepreneurs; facilitating financial assistance; providing a global market to women entrepreneurs, and connecting them with innovative products. We have to work together to break the barriers for the economic development of women, he added.
The Lt Governor observed that J&K has a long history of women’s glory to bring social change and breaking new grounds as far as gender equality and professional development are concerned. To lay a strong foundation for the girls, no fee will be charged up to the 12th standard from 5,89,000 girl students who took admission in different government-run schools, said the Lt Governor.
The Lt Governor observed that 88 Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya and 88 Girls Hostels have been made functional in far-flung areas and this would help in filling the gender gap and controlling the girl child dropout rate. To assist the higher education of girls, the Government is also providing 13 different scholarship schemes, he added.
