10 Years Of Beti Bachao Beti Padhao: Real Progress Or Hollow Promises?

On January 22, 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi stood before the people of Panipat, and said: 바카라�I come as a beggar, begging for the lives of our daughters.바카라� It wasn바카라�t just rhetoric바카라�the numbers painted an alarming reality. India바카라�s child sex ratio had hit critical lows, a symptom of the deep-seated gender bias surrounding the girl child. This speech marked the start of the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (BBBP), a flagship scheme, created to curb female foeticide and push for girls바카라� education.

The campaign spread everywhere. Stickers on auto-rickshaws, slogans on the backs of trucks, TV ads, billboards, even mobile phone dial tones바카라�all echoed the same message: Save the Girl Child, Educate the Girl Child. It was pitched as a national reckoning, a decisive intervention.

But 10 years later, has anything really changed? Has the scheme actually met its target to save and educate the girl child?

The BBBP campaign set out with clear objectives: curb the declining child sex ratio (CSR), enforce the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act (), increase girls바카라� enrollment in schools, tackle dropout rates, and improve menstrual hygiene management.

It promised financial incentives for families educating daughters, investments in school infrastructure, and dedicated task forces to prevent sex-selective abortions. With a fund allocation of Rs 848 crore between 2015 and 2022 (excluding the COVID years) and a collaborative effort involving the Ministries of Women and Child Development, Health and Family Welfare, and Education, the initiative promised sweeping reforms.

However, an audit presented by the (CEW) in August 2022 revealed that of the total Rs 848 crore, only Rs 622.48 crore was released to the states, and a mere 25.13 per cent of that amount was actually expended.

Additionally, the report found a lack of disaggregated data on how the funds were spent on critical interventions like education and health

In response to these findings, Ministry representatives wrote 바카라�Fund utilisation in the initial years was low as districts took some time to know about the modalities of the scheme.바카라�

They added that an MIS system was being developed to capture the details from the districts and disaggregate the data. However, this is yet to be developed and implemented.

This lack of transparent data pushed several private and independent researchers to investigate the allocation of funds. One of these researchers is Avni Arora, who found a staggering 78.91 per cent of the funds allocated to the states were consumed by media campaigns rather than by direct, structural interventions.

These campaigns included a 30-second jingle aired on radio and television in seven regional languages, stickers and painted messaging on motor vehicles, as well as social media push with initiatives like #SelfieWithDaughter.

States also had their own campaigns. In Jharkhand, for example, publicity relied on poster-making contests in schools, short video clips, and scattered social media posts.

In her of BBBP for the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), Arora was critical of the large-scale media campaigns, calling them 바카라�a misallocation of funds바카라�.

When asked about her perspective on this, three years after she wrote the analysis, Arora told Outlook that 바카라�not much has changed바카라�. 바카라�There were a lot of other structural places in which those funds could have been dispersed,바카라� she said.

According to Arora, direct funding to task forces, menstrual hygiene reforms, and digital access would have had a greater impact in addressing deep structural biases that are preventing women and girls from reaching equality.

However, raising awareness and media advocacy does play an important role in planting the seeds for this structural change, according to Mitali Nikore, an economist and feminist scholar.

바카라�The fact that the slogan Beti Bachao Beti Padhao stayed in everyone바카라�s memory is critical,바카라� she said. 바카라�Being repeated again and again has swayed the minds of the people in the most hard-to-reach segments, like the working classes and the low income groups. Having said that, can we say it has inspired everyone, or it has completely eliminated the bias against the girl child altogether? Of course not,바카라� says Nikore.

When we look at the data, the results of the scheme are mixed.

India바카라�s education equality ranking has improved from 129th in the world in 2015 to 112th in 2024, according to the . This 17-point increase can be attributed to a number of factors including several schemes launched by the BBBP.

Initiatives like the Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya Scheme offer residential schooling for disadvantaged girls and the Kanya Shiksha Pravesh Utsav re-enroll out-of-school adolescent girls aged 11-14.

National education projects like the Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan also started including sensitivity training for teachers about declining CSR and equal education opportunities.

However, Arora points out that even though literacy rates are on the rise, a significant 73.4 per cent of girls still encounter structural hurdles once they enter schools.

Data from the CWE shows that while girls바카라� enrolment is high at 96.72 per cent in elementary schools, it drops to 76.93 per cent in secondary schools and further declines to 50.84 per cent in higher secondary education. Arora attributes this steep drop-out rate largely due to inadequate access to clean, safe bathrooms, insufficient menstrual hygiene products, and the persistent stigma surrounding menstruation.

Financial restrictions and hegemonic values of male preferences also contribute to this dropout rate.

Even for those who complete their education, cultural barriers바카라�like that of early marriage pressure바카라�prevent women from entering the workforce. underscores this issue, revealing that only 32.7 per cent of Indian women participate in the economy. Without meaningful structural and social reforms, education for girls risks becoming a symbolic effort, rather than a pathway to real empowerment.

Amending the skewed child sex ratio, a central promise of the BBBP scheme remains unfulfilled and increasingly unmonitored.

Despite repeated amendments to the PC & PNDT Act in 2003 and 2020, the 2024 NHFS-5 survey reveals that the child sex ratio in Haryana has dropped to 910 girls per 1,000 boys. This is the lowest recorded CSR in eight years.

The Committee on Empowerment of Women attributes this to factors such as poor enforcement of the PC & PNDT Act, infrequent monitoring, and a lack of active task forces. The report found that 18 states reported no registered cases of selective sex abortion at all even though declining CSR suggests these are still taking place.

The 2022 audit also revealed that 바카라�over the last 25 years, only 617 convictions were given out of 3,158 court cases registered under the PC & PNDT Act in Rajasthan and Maharashtra. These states with lowest sex ratio at birth, 871 and 880 respectively.

Beyond CSR, the BBBP scheme also aimed to protect the girl child after birth. 바카라�Just being born isn바카라�t enough,바카라� says Arora, emphasising the need for post birth structural changes for women, including healthcare and access to safety.

According to the Global Gender Gap Report, India바카라�s rank in overall health and survival of women has improved but only by 1 point바카라�from 143 in 2015 to 142 in 2024. The ranking is still among the lowest in the world and has fallen from 131 in 2011.

The report cited this ranking as a result of ongoing selective sex abortions and healthcare disparities, stating 바카라�(in) countries바카라�including Qatar (94.8 per cent), Viet Nam (94.5 per cent), Pakistan (94.4 per cent), Azerbaijan) (93.9 per cent), India (93.7 per cent) and China (93.5 per cent)바카라�uneven access to health for women and pre- or post-natal sex selection persist바카라�.

Although the exact national child sex ratio will only be determined once the latest Census data is released (the last Census was in 2011, over a decade ago), the NHFS predicts a downward trend. CWE argues that there is still a long way to go before India achieves parity with the United Nations guidelines for healthy sex ratios at birth and CSR.

Today, the BBBP campaign has become a substrata of the latest women바카라�s empowerment campaign, Mission Shakti. A decade after its ambitious launch, the numbers tell us that there was clear underutilisation and misallocation of funds. Schools were promised better infrastructure, yet dropout rates among women are increasing. The PC & PNDT Act was revised, yet selective abortions persist with little accountability.

Yet, the people who the scheme promised to help have not forgotten about its mission. In Panipat, where the scheme was launched, people are implementing the scheme on their own.

BBBP's Panipat Facebook community has amassed over 13,000 members and has been working to fundraise for better sports facilities for girls, create communal involvement, and바카라�on a local level바카라�work to enforce women바카라�s safety.

The group's administrative board wrote 바카라�despite the best efforts of the government, the expected success ( of the scheme) was not being achieved.바카라�

바카라�Somewhere we felt that in this task of giving respect to daughters, society must be involved if the government isn't.바카라�

Ultimately, while the BBBP campaign has etched a memorable slogan into the public consciousness, it has fallen short in meeting its goals beyond spreading awareness. If we have to achieve a real shift in social approaches to saving and educating the girl child, there needs to be a critical restructuring of fund allocation, spending and enforcement of schemes at the district level.

A decade after its conception, the unfulfilled promises of BBBP serve as a stark reminder that without decisive action, even the most resounding slogans remain hollow.