An evaluation of Schemes of the Ministry of Women & Child Development including Scheme for Adolescent Girls was conducted by NITI Ayog during 2020.

Scheme for Adolescent Girls (SAG), a Centrally-sponsored scheme, aimed at providing nutritional support to out of school girls in the age group of 11-14 years for improving their health and nutritional status and motivated them to go back to formal schooling, provided life skill training, accessing public services etc. However, Right to Education Act, 2009 provides legal entitlement for compulsory and free education to AGs in the age group of 11-14 years and all the AGs in this group are entitled to go-to school wherein they are provided mid day meal for improving their nutritional status. Hence, a decline in the number of beneficiaries was seen under the Scheme due to the RTE Act.

Since the adolescent girls in the age group of 11-14 years are being covered under the RTE Act, recently the Scheme for Adolescent Girls has been revised and subsumed under Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0 wherein the targeted beneficiaries are all the AGs in the age group of (14+) to18 years in the Aspirational Districts and the North Eastern States.

The Government of India has launched a campaign “Kanya Shiksha Pravesh Utsav” on 07.03.2022 under Beti Bachao Beti Padhao Scheme to ensure that all the out-of-school Adolescent Girls in the age group of 11-14 years are enrolled back to formal schooling.

This information was given by the Union Minister of Women and Child Development, Smt. Smriti Zubin Irani, in a written reply in Rajya Sabha today.

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(Release ID: 1811388)