Author: Moumita Saha Roy
DOI Link: https://doi.org/10.70798/Bijmrd/03120004
Abstract: The issue of ‘Women’s Empowerment’ has gained a lot of focus and limelight in recent times. Genderization is a deep-rooted social phenomenon, while the huge disparity in male-female ratio, the severe gender gap in their literacy rates, early marriage of girl children, low female participation rates in politics, etc., are some of the indicators of highly unequal gender relations prevalent in our society. The West Bengal government introduced one such Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) program in 2013 under the name “Kanyashree Prakalpa” (KP). This Prakalpa is the brainchild of the Hon’ble Chief Minister of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee. This scheme was implemented to empower adolescent girls, especially those from socioeconomically disadvantaged families, by decreasing the child marriage rate, incentivizing them to continue their education, to make them independent, and skillful to improve the status and well-being of girls. This scheme also increases the social strength and self-esteem of girls. The present study tries to find out the impact of KP on the perception of women empowerment among the beneficiaries in West Bengal. The main objective of this paper is to analyze the distribution pattern of grants and the effectiveness of this policy. The paper also tries to highlight some social issues of this policy. The study reveals that this policy has been successful in reducing child marriage as the percentage of dropout’s falls and the number of girl’s children having formal education increases in the state throughout the year.
Keywords: Child Marriage, Education, Kanyashree Prakalpa, Self-Employment, Social Awareness, Women Empowerment.
Page No: 33-49