August 3, 2022
Santanu Sen’s Zero Hour mention on the need for women’s empowerment through literacy
Sir, it is really good to see that the Parliament is functioning and I am really delighted to have the opportunity to
speak on Zero Hour because my point of order despite waiting for nearly 20 minutes was.My point is, we all know, we all admit that the women literacy is one of the most important indicators for the development of a country. Unfortunately, in our State, the women literacy is only 65 per cent which is far away from the expectation. Especially, in the bigger States like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir, and Madhya Pradesh, the women literacy rates are extremely poor which are leading to more fertility, more mortality, more hardships and lack of knowledge for their rights as well. So far the knowledge goes; the reasons are negative attitude, patriarchal psychology, poverty, accessibility to the schools and lack of female teachers. As far as the budgetary allocation is concerned, it
is very unfortunate to note that in such a big country, the budgetary allocation for education as a whole is very meagre. If we compare the Budget of 2022 with that of 2021, there was a sharp decrease by 6 per cent. As far as health expenditure per capita in respect of women is concerned, it is also very poor. So far as the world is concerned, it is at 140 out of 190 countries. Sir, there is a project called ‘Beti Bachao Beti Padhao’. Unfortunately, the Parliamentary Committee on Empowerment of Women in Lok Sabha said that 80 per cent of the total budgetary allocation was spent on advertisement only. Our learned Minister, *has herself admitted… From a period of 2014 to 2019, 54 per cent of the total Budget was spent on advertisement only. From 2014-15 to 2021, the expenditure for the project is Rs.740 crore out of which Rs.401 crore was spent on advertisement only. The Parliamentary Committee has categorically mentioned that no monitoring or periodic upgradation has been done as far as this project is concerned. Sir, I must cite some examples. If you come to our State of West Bengal, the internationally awarded
Kanyashree Project is there. What is under this project? Sir; there are k1,k2 and k3 categories. From the age group of 13 to 18 years, Rs.759 for allowance; 18 to 19 years group, Rs.2,500 as one term grant and for the University students, Rs.2,500 for the science students and Rs.2,000 per month for the arts students. Sir, my humble submission is that there are few other projects like Sabooj Sathi which gives more accessibility… My humble submission…
