

A place to stay near college: Centre’s plan to keep girls in higher education
Millions of girls fall out of India’s education system after school, simply because there is no safe and affordable place for them to live near college. To plug this gap, the Centre is weighing a national programme to build girls’ hostels in districts with an outlay of about ₹10,000 crore in the upcoming Union budget, according to two government officials aware of the matter.The first official said, requesting anonymity, that the proposal envisages at least one dedicated hostel for girl students in each of India’s 806 districts over the next five years.The hostels will be standalone and not connected to any institution, and they will likely be built at district headquarters, near clusters of colleges and universities.
Further, the reservation norms applicable to higher education institutions would also apply to admission to these hostels.“The proposal is aimed at building residential hostel facilities exclusively for girl students enrolled in higher education,” the second official said, also requesting anonymity. “The facilities will cater to students pursuing undergraduate and postgraduate courses, and a nominal fee may be charged for maintenance.”The budgetary allocation will be meant to cover construction, basic furnishings, wardens’ accommodation, kitchens, sanitation and safety-related infrastructure such as boundary walls and surveillance systems, while leaving room for states to adapt designs to local conditions.The spending may be phased over multiple years to ease the fiscal burden and allow states to align projects with land availability and institutional needs, the officials said.
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