The Bihar government on Sunday said it would provide ₹1,500 each month to those children who have lost their parents to COVID-19 in the State. The children will get the financial assistance till the age of 18 and will be housed in State child care centres.
“Those children who have lost their both parents or, at least one parent has died due to corona, the State government will provide them ₹1,500 each month till the age of 18 under Bal Sahayta Yojna [child help programme]. Those children who have lost their parents will be taken care of in child care centres and the orphaned girls will get admission in Kasturba Gandhi Balika residential schools on priority basis,” tweeted Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Sunday.
Earlier, the Supreme Court had directed the State governments to identify such children and take steps to help them. On Saturday, the Centre had announced a scheme for such children from PM-CARES fund.
The Bihar CM’s measures for rehabilitating the orphan children came a day after his counterparts in Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Assam made similar announcements on Saturday.
Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma, on the other hand, has said his government would provide Rs 3,500 per month per child till his/ her employment, if the child has lost either both parents or the sole bread earner of the family due to Covid.
While the UP government has announced to provide a monthly grant of Rs 4,000 per month to each orphan child under the ‘Mukhya Mantri Bal Sewa Yojana’, Tamil Nadu CM M K Stalin has decided to create a Rs 5 lakh deposit in the name of each orphan child who has lost both parents due to Covid-19 and pay their tuition and hostel fees till graduation.
According to data available with Bihar’s social welfare department, around 50 children have so far been orphaned in the second wave of Covid-19 in Bihar while more than 1,480 have lost one of their parents due to the virus. “We are still in the process of collecting updated data of such children from some districts. As death due to Covid is still being reported, we have to update the data with latest feedback from the districts,” a state government official said.
