The government will give bicycles to school-going female students of Bangladesh. Initially, these bicycles will be distributed among 16,000 female students across the country. For this purpose, a project of 25 crore tk has been undertaken by the Directorate of Women Affairs. This program is scheduled to start this year.
The main objective of this project titled ‘Giving Bicycles to School-going Girls in Kishore Empowerment’ is to make it safe and easy for poor and talented girls to travel to school. A project evaluation committee meeting has already been held in the Planning Commission on the proposed project on April 2.
Director General of Women Affairs Directorate Kaya Khan said that the project will start in July this year and will continue till December 2026.
The other objectives behind the implementation of this project are to prevent child marriage by helping to ensure regular education programs, to make it safe and easy for poor and talented girls to go to school, to prevent school-going girls from dropping out, to continue uninterrupted education programs, to increase the confidence of school-going girls. And creating leadership attitudes through capacity building.
Priority will be given to government schools in distribution of bicycles. Beneficiaries will be selected on the basis of scoring the students on merit, poverty and other relevant variables.
To determine the beneficiaries of the project, making a list of female students following the specific format or criteria at the upazila level and including the officials nominated by the concerned upazila executive officer, the officer in charge of the concerned police station instead of the local thana in the beneficiary selection committee and the concerned UP chairman in the case of the union and the concerned mayor in the case of the municipality. will be included.
Under this project, 6th class girls will get bicycles in 48 upazilas of 8 districts in 8 divisions. Initially these bicycles will be given in Rajbari, Khagrachari, Sunamganj, Jamalpur, Chapainawabganj, Kurigram, Jhenaidah and Barguna.
The scheme of distributing bicycles to school students is not new. Neighboring country India has one such project. In 2015, the West Bengal Government of India launched a scheme called ‘Sabuj Sathi’ to solve the problem of commuting of school students. Under that project, bicycles are provided to school students. So far, the West Bengal government has distributed bicycles to 85 lakh students at a cost of Tk 2,700 crore under the scheme.
Meanwhile, it is a pilot project in Bangladesh. If it is successful, then the project will be implemented across the country, said the Directorate of Women Affairs.
