Saraswati Cycle Yojana(SCY)

Overview

About SCY

A girl in Chhattisgarh never fills a form for the Saraswati Cycle Yojana. She enrols in class 9 at a government or government-aided school, her name is already on the school register, and the principal reads that register against a caste certificate or a BPL card to settle who goes on the cycle list (School Education Department, Chhattisgarh). The same page names the School Education Department and the Directorate of Public Instruction as the implementing arms and the whole of Chhattisgarh as the working area; myScheme dates the scheme to 2004 (myScheme).

It has two owners rather than one, which is why two girls in the same district can be listed by two different offices. In the evaluation SCERT Raipur commissioned, the School Education Department was running the scheme in 61 blocks and the Tribal Welfare Department in 85, so 146 blocks in all (Evaluation Study of the Saraswati Bicycle Supply Scheme, SCERT Raipur).

That study is where almost every published number about this scheme comes from, and it is old. It counted the five years to 2011-12; the department's live scheme page carries purpose, beneficiaries, benefit and selection rule, and no figures at all. Every count, cost and timing below it belongs to the study period, and is marked as such.

Who runs it

Provider

At a glance

Key details

Calendar

Important dates

There is no calendar a family can plan around. myScheme records the scheme as open since 2004 with no closing date, which is accurate and of no help to a girl waiting on a cycle (myScheme).

The date that decides everything is the delivery date. Across the five years it studied, the SCERT evaluation found cycles reaching schools around six months into each academic year, with most of the sampled schools handing them out close to the end of the session (SCERT evaluation). Its proposed fix was procedural, to build the order on class 8 enrolment data the state already holds instead of waiting for class 9 numbers to travel up from every school. No state page says whether that was adopted.

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

Every test here is administrative, and marks are not among them. A girl has to be in class 9, in a government school or an aided non-government school, and either from a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe family or from a family below the poverty line (School Education Department, Chhattisgarh). Residence closes the set: the scheme runs for Chhattisgarh only (myScheme).

The BPL head is the wider of the two, and it is the only door open to a girl outside both reserved categories. The SCERT evaluation records the education department's coverage as class 9 girls of SC and ST families plus, under the BPL head, girls of OBC and general families (SCERT evaluation). No rupee income line exists anywhere in the scheme's papers. The BPL card is the whole economic test, which makes the ration card, not an income certificate, the paper that decides borderline cases.

Who cannot apply

Exclusions

Neither the department nor myScheme publishes an exclusion list, so the eligibility lines do all of the excluding by themselves: a girl in a private unaided school, a girl in class 8 or class 10, a girl studying outside Chhattisgarh, and a girl whose family holds neither a caste certificate nor a BPL card are each outside the scheme.

The friction that creates inside a classroom is on record. Principals in the sampled schools told the evaluators they wanted every enrolled girl covered, so that girls falling outside SC, ST and BPL were not singled out in front of the rest (SCERT evaluation).

Continuation

Renewal conditions

The benefit lands in class 9 and does not come round again. Neither the department's scheme page nor the myScheme record sets out a repair provision, a replacement provision, or anything attached to class 10 (School Education Department, Chhattisgarh). A family that gets a cycle in class 9 and loses it in class 10 has no published route back into the scheme.

What you get

Award & benefits

What reaches the girl is an object, not a voucher. myScheme classifies the benefit as in kind, and the purchase is the state's own: a vendor supplies the cycle, and no money is put in a family's hands to go and buy one (myScheme; SCERT evaluation).

The only published specification is the one the SCERT study reproduced: a ladies cycle in the 22 inch model, black, with bell, full stand, seat, half chain cover, lock, carrier, sariguard, basket and reflector, weighing 21 to 22 kg, at a cost to the state of Rs 2,600 to Rs 2,700 per cycle depending on the brand (SCERT evaluation). That price belongs to the study period. No state page publishes a current unit cost or a current specification, so read the model and the money as the shape of what the state buys, not as this year's rate contract.

The badge on the frame moves with the vendor list. Hercules, Atlas, Hero, Nova, Kross, DIL and Raillies had all been supplied at points between the scheme's start and the study, and when the evaluators visited, education department schools were receiving Kross, DIL and Raillies while tribal welfare schools received Atlas (SCERT evaluation).

• Free cycles are being distributed to girl students under the scheme.

What to prepare

Documents required

The papers myScheme lists are not an application pack. They are the evidence a principal checks against the register, and each one settles a different test: the caste certificate decides the SC and ST names, the BPL card decides everyone else, the school certificate and the residence certificate settle class and state, and Aadhaar identifies the girl. The department states that selection rule in a single line, and the two certificates named in it are the two that matter most (School Education Department, Chhattisgarh).

A stale BPL list is the documented failure point. The evaluators put the misuse they found, cycles gifted to relatives and cycles turned to household errands, down to faulty BPL lists and the absence of any verification of the asset or the beneficiary after delivery (SCERT evaluation). If a family's ration card has lapsed, or the name on it differs from the school record, that is worth fixing before class 9 admission rather than after.

Step by step

How to apply

There is no form, no fee and no window. myScheme records the application mode as offline and names the route: the head of the school first, with the District Education Officer as the fallback where the school has not acted (myScheme).

Timing is the part parents get wrong. Demand travels upward, from schools to the district and from districts to the state, and the purchase order is built on those reported numbers, so a name missing from the school's list in the first weeks of class 9 is a name missing from the consignment months later (SCERT evaluation). Ask the class teacher to confirm the entry at admission, not in December.

There is also no payment to track, which is where most searches go wrong. The benefit is an asset, so nothing lands in a bank account and no reference number exists to type into a portal. Chhattisgarh's school scholarship portal, which carries the state and centrally sponsored cash scholarships for classes 3 to 12 and pays them by Aadhaar-based DBT, does not carry this scheme (Chhattisgarh Scholarship Portal). The record that decides a girl's case is the class 9 beneficiary list held in the school office. Ask the principal for it, then the Block Education Officer who moves cycles to schools, then the District Education Officer, the scheme's nodal officer at district level (SCERT evaluation).

How winners are picked

Selection process

Selection is administrative and it happens inside the school. The department's wording is short: the principal selects beneficiary girls on the basis of the caste certificate, and girls of the BPL category on the basis of the BPL card (School Education Department, Chhattisgarh). No merit list, no cutoff, no interview, no comparison of one girl against another.

Everything after that is procurement, and procurement is where the waiting sits. The SCERT evaluation documented the chain as it then ran: CSIDC finalised the state's cycle vendors on rate contract; district buying sat with a purchase committee chaired by the Collector, with the DEO as secretary and two principals, two Block Education Officers and five parents of eligible girls as members; the vendor assembled the cycles at block headquarters, taking 10 to 15 days with 15 to 20 workers; Block Education Officers and principals then moved them to schools, where the handover was usually done in front of the sarpanch or a local MLA or MP (SCERT evaluation). The department's own scheme page carries none of this, so there is no newer public description of the chain to set against it.

Quality control was a sample plus a test ride. One sample cycle was placed at the DEO's office, ITI staff were called in to check it against the vendor's specification, the assembled cycles at the block were matched to that sample, and some of the girls were asked to ride one before final delivery (SCERT evaluation).

Fine print

Terms & conditions

No conditions ride on the benefit. The department's page sets out purpose, beneficiaries, benefit and selection, and stops there (School Education Department, Chhattisgarh).

What sits in that space is a gap the state's evaluators named for it: the scheme carried no performance monitoring provision for the distribution and use of the cycles, and Block Education Officers and principals rarely visited beneficiaries afterwards, so a cycle that ends up carrying household loads or is passed to a relative appears in nobody's file (SCERT evaluation).

Get help

Contact

Start with the principal of the school, who holds the list and makes the selection. Above the principal sit the Block Education Officer, who coordinates the movement of cycles, and the District Education Officer, the scheme's nodal officer at district level; in schools run by the Tribal Welfare Department that district role belongs to the Assistant Commissioner (SCERT evaluation). State office numbers, including the Directorate of Public Instruction, are published on the department's own contact page (School Education Department, Chhattisgarh).

Source

Official links

Frequently asked questions

From the official scheme FAQ (myScheme)

Read this

Disclaimer

Disclaimer

Scheme details are compiled from myScheme, the Government of India’s official scheme-discovery platform, and are reproduced without alteration. Amounts, deadlines and eligibility change between cycles, so always confirm on the official links above before applying. Expertie does not process applications or charge fees.

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References

Sources