The ‘Beti Bachau-Beti Padhau’ campaign—an insurance scheme to encourage girl education—has failed to take off effectively this fiscal year. The scheme that was introduced on January 15, 2019, has been affected since the Chief Minister’s Office in Province 2 is yet to hire employees to implement the scheme through every local unit.

Ram Joti Sah, a local of Nigaul in Gaushala, went to the Chief Minister’s Office in Janakpur with her daughter-in-law to insure her newly-born granddaughter but had to come back disappointed, she said. “This is the third visit in one week to the Chief Minister’s Office for my granddaughter. Like before, we are again returning without getting the job done.”

In the absence of employees dedicated to the scheme at the local level, the Chief Minister’s Office has temporarily gone back to the original plan of running the campaign through the Chief Minister’s Office. However, four months into this fiscal year, not a single employee has been hired for the scheme.

According to the Chief Minister and Office of Council of Ministers in Province 2, the campaign has been halted until mid-January 2020.

On Wednesday, the office notified service seekers that the campaign will be resumed at the local units once the 136 vacant posts of employees are filled.

Under the scheme, which is often referred to as a pet project of Chief Minister of Province-2 Lal Babu Raut, every newborn girl is to be insured across all eight districts in the province.

According to the Chief Minister’s Office, a girl child is eligible for the insurance scheme once she receives her citizenship certificate. “The girls will receive a lump sum insurance amount of Rs 125,000 for education,” said Priyanka Yadav, the coordinator of the campaign.

Isarail Shesh of Samsi in Mahottari also has been frequenting the Chief Minister’s Office to claim insurance for his newborn granddaughter. “The officials at the office don’t pay attention to us. For the past week, I have been carrying my young granddaughter to and from the office but nobody has come forward with any information,” he said.

Yadav said that the office had already opened 4,372 bank accounts for girls under the insurance scheme in the last fiscal year. She said, “In the last four months, we have prepared more than 5,000 insurance forms from Saptari, Siraha, Dhanusha, Mahottari, Sarlahi, Rautahat, Bara and Parsa districts.”

According to her, the office has started the process to recruit employees to fill in the vacancies announced by the Chief Minister’s Office. “We will soon appoint employees in the respective local units to facilitate the service seekers,” she said.

The Chief Minister’s Office had started the insurance policy with the hope of achieving a milestone in stopping child marriage and dowry system prevalent in the region.
Under the Beti Bachau-Beti Padhau campaign, 14,000 bicycles were distributed to girls and 100 toilets were constructed for girl students in Province 2 in the last fiscal year.