Beti Bachao Beti Padhao Scheme: Over 50% money spent on media campaigns

NEW DELHI: The central government has spent 51.1% on media advocacy campaign Beti Bachao Beti Padhao scheme since its inception . Out of the total expenditure of Rs 783.29 crore from financial year 2014-15 to FY 2022-23, an amount of Rs. 401.04 crore was spent just on marketing, the ministry of women and child development told the Lok Sabha on Friday.

The total expenditure by the ministry on the scheme reduced from Rs 244.73 crore in 2018-19 to Rs 85.78 crore in FY 2019-20. The expenditure on media advocacy campaigns at central level sharply declined in 2020-21 and has been nil in the past two years, as per the data shared by the ministry.

The data shows that from 2014-15 to 2022-23, the government spent Rs 783.29 crore out of total money allocated to the tune of Rs 1156 crore -- 67.7%. With just two months left for the completion of the financial year 2022-23, the government has released just Rs 43.11 crores out of Rs 108 crore (39.9%) for the BBBP scheme in the current financial year as on January 12, 2023.

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BBBP scheme expenditure on media campaigns

The Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (BBBP) scheme was launched in 2015 as a tri-ministerial effort of the ministry of women and child development, ministry of education and ministry of health and family welfare with the objective to prevent gender biased sex selective elimination.

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Union minister Smriti Irani in her reply stated that the marketing for BBBP scheme was done in the initial phase to “bring an attitudinal shift in society towards valuing the girl child”.

“The all India advertisements of BBBP have been able to successfully establish the brand BBBP which has an excellent recall value,” she added.

In the 15th Finance Commission, BBBP scheme was approved as a component under the Sambal sub scheme of Mission Shakti. A combined budget for media advocacy has been kept under one envelope for all the schemes in Mission Shakti, the reply stated.

Under the BBBP scheme, the multi-sectoral action is focused on schematic intervention and sectoral actions in consultation with the health ministry and education ministry. The data shared by the women and child development ministry shows that an amount of Rs 266.95 crore out of Rs 482.27 crore - 55.3% - remain unutilised from 2017-18 to 2022-23. Out of Rs 105.3 crore fund allocated for multi-sectoral intervention in FY 2022-23, an amount of Rs 81.82 was unutilized as on January 20, 2023 –77.70%.

Responding to a question on how the Government plans to take measures to benefit girl children, the minister said: “A special campaign namely Kanya Shiksha Pravesh Utsav was launched on 07th March, 2022 to re-enroll out of school adolescent girls (OoS AG) in the age group of 11-14 years. The main components of the scheme were Social mobilization and Awareness and Incentivization of AWWs for Counseling and Referrals.”