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The Kalyana Lakshmi/ Shaadi Mubarak Scheme of the Telangana government, which provides financial assistance to parents of poor girls to get them married, has in a small way led to a reduction in child marriages. The state government on Monday hiked the assistance to Rs 1,00,116 from Rs 75,116 last year. Chief Minister, K Chandrasekhara Rao, while making this announcement in the Legislative Assembly, said the scheme would help eliminate child marriage in the long run.
He listed steps such as fixing the minimum age for getting benefit as 18, according legal recognition for the marriage and extending the scheme to all economically backward people, as yielding positive results. These were leading to societal gains. The scheme introduced on October 2, 2014, has so far benefitted 3.6 lakh girls.
Telangana, the country’s youngest state formed on June 2, 2014, started the Kalyana Lakshmi scheme for SCs and STs and Shaadi Mubarak for the minority community, with a grant of Rs 51,000, to facilitate the marriage of a girl child. Very soon, on a representation from the people, the scheme was extended to all sections of society.
Poverty and backwardness are common features in most parts of the 10 districts of the state. Despite this, marriage with all its traditions is a costly affair and a necessary practise for families. Often, parents of girls have to face a big financial and emotional burden to perform marriages. At its cruel end are cases of female infanticide to the other depressing feature of girls remaining spinsters.
In several instances, studies have shown that post the marriage of a girl child, the family gets pushed into a debt trap and are financially broke. In the financial struggle and emotional challenge, the parents compromise the education of the girl child and sometimes child marriages become the norm. The victim of these circumstances is mostly the girl child.
In the last three years, the scheme has indirectly increased the prestige of the Telangana government. It has brought happiness in the life of the girl child. Instances of parents waiting doggedly till the girl attains the age of 18 to ensure that they become eligible for the scheme is a positive outcome, the CM said.
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