Backing its efforts to live down the shame of a low sex ratio, the district is seeing a long queue to adopt poor girls and give them an education. Last week, the district administration launched a scheme named “Doctors for Daughters” under its “Street to School” programme to involve citizens in educating girls from the lowest rungs of society.
Reputable doctors have voluntarily adopted 40 girls, two of them physically challenged, from a cluster of jhuggis with a promise to finance their education until at least Class XII. The doctors will have to pay for their uniform and stationery if they study in a government school, where education is free. The sponsor will have to pay the tuition fee in private schools, District Collector Arti Dogra told The Hindu .
The doctors will have to pay for all medical expenses of the adopted girls. “Right now, these girls, who were rag-pickers, are enrolled in government schools and will be brought on a par with other students. Thereafter, the sponsor can decide whether the child has to be shifted to a private school or a hostel or has to continue in the same school. This will also depend on the academic performance of the child,” she said.
Ms. Dogra said the girls were identified after long sessions with their parents, who were initially reluctant to send them to school. The children had dropped out of schools earlier and took to rag-picking.
One family had three girls. The doctor who was supposed to sponsor one decided to sponsor all three. “We already have at least a dozen individuals waiting to sponsor girls in the next phase. Picking up doctors was a starting point,” she said.
Ms. Dogra launched the “Street to School” programme in 2013 by enrolling nine girls of a government orphanage in a private school with the help of sponsors. She has sponsored one girl, as do some of her colleagues.
With Rajasthan having a low sex ratio, the State government has been focussing on the Prime Minister’s Beti Bachchao, Beti Padhao programme.
