48 lakh girls have benefitted in 'Kanyashree' project

Over 48 lakh girls in West Bengal have benefitted in the globally recognised 'Kanyashree' project in the state in the past four and half years, State Project Manager, Kansyashree, Department of Women and Child Development, Priyanka Dev said today.

The 'Kanyashree' project is known world-wide as Bengal's flagship project aimed at empowerment of adolescent girls and since its implementation five years ago there has been positive changes in male peer groups in a locality and among male guardians of a household.

There had been Rs 1.6 crore cash transactions for 48.37 lakh girls from 16,679 educational institutions across the state during that period, she said.

Dev, who was addressing a programme on empowerment of women at the Calcutta Chamber of Commerce here, said the 'Kanyashree' was adopted in 2013 after taking into account all the conditional cash transfer schemes elsewhere in the world.

"While any change takes decades, we have already seen positive effects of Kanyashree which had two outputs - cash transfer to the bank account of girls and the rise in number of school going girls," she said.

Kanyashree was an initiative by the West Bengal government to improve the life and status of the girls by helping economically baackward families with cash. The scheme has two components - annual scholarship and one time grant.

Joint CP, Kolkata Police (Establishment) Sujoy Chanda, said while there are various safeguards for women the ground reality is still different.

Danseuse Alakananda Roy and fashion designer Agnimitra Paul also talked about ways to empower women at the discussion.