New Delhi: The BJP-led Union government's flagship programme 'Beti Bachao Beti Padhao' (BBBP) has spent 58 per cent of its allocated funds on advertising the campaign in media.
Of the total expenditure of Rs 683.05 crore for the campaign between 2014-15 and 2020-21, about Rs 401.04 crore or 58 per cent was spent on media campaign, the Ministry of Women and Child Development replied to Trinamool Congress MP Derek O' Brien's question in the Rajya Sabha.
'Beti Bachao Beti Padhao' has launched in 2015 on the special interest of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to address declining child sex ratio and focuses on issues such as sex-selective termination and protection of the girl child.
"As per the scheme guidelines, the fund is earmarked for districts identified for multi-sectoral interventions, for extending community outreach, advocacy and generating awareness, inter alia, through various means, including media," the Ministry said in the reply.
During the initial phase of the campaign, focus has been given to create awareness among people to bring a shift in attitude through media campaign. A sharp increase in the spending witnessed during 2017-18 and 2018-19 and by the beginning of the 2019, the spending has been found to be declining.
But, in the last 2 years, expenditure on Media Advocacy campaign at Central Level has sharply declined. The present focus in on behavioural change communication which requires community-based events, use of social media platforms, advocacy through webinars, use of my-gov platform and convergence with other Ministries for branding and advocacy, the Rajya Sabha was informed in the Ministry's reply.
A Parliamentary Committee report on women empowerment also flagged poor utilisation of funds by states under the scheme and suggested that the government needs to focus more on education and health than on advertising the scheme. Titled 'Empowerment of Women through Education with Special Reference to Beti Bachao-Beti Padhao Scheme' and tabled in the Lok Sabha in December 2021, it said that since the inception of the scheme in 2014-15 till 2019-20, its total budgetary allocation was Rs 848 crore. An amount of Rs 622.48 crore was released to the states during this period.