After reviewing various welfare schemes being executed by the woman and child committees of Zilla Parishads (ZPs), the Maharashtra government has asked them to gift bicycles to girls from poor families who have to walk over two kilometres to attend school and provide sex education to adolescent students.

In directives issued by the rural development department to ZPs and Panchayat Samitis (PS) a week ago, the state government said it has reviewed the working of 24 schemes evolved in 2001 and 17 schemes added in 2006, and reduced the number of schemes to 21. And the new list of schemes includes the bicycle scheme for girls from Below Poverty Line (BPL) families.

The ZPs have been asked to provide free bicycles to girls from Class V to Class X who walk minimum two kilometres to reach their school. The ZPs have been asked to conduct a survey to find out the beneficiaries and implement the novel scheme.

The new directives also ask ZPs and PSs to provide sex education to adolescent girls and boys. “We call it life-skills (not sex education) that are necessary for adolescents,” a senior official said. “We have asked the ZPs to seek the help of NGOs and medical experts to impart scientific information on the problems faced by students who are growing up with secondary sexual characteristics,” he said.

He pointed out that there would be separate classes for boys and girls and such classes, which would last one to two hours, would be held once a week. “Basically, we want the girls to know about personal hygiene, menstruation, pregnancy, bad effects of marrying early, contraception methods and sexual harassment. The boys would be educated on anatomy, how to behave with girls and sexually transmitted diseases,” he said, pointing out that the idea was to provide proper information that would remove unscientific beliefs and prepare rural students to face the world with confidence.

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