Agartala, June 8 (TIWN): The state government has ordered five thousand additional bicycles for poor girl students as a part of the state sponsored scheme to aid girls in furthering academic pursuits. The scheme, announced by Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar in august, 2013, was initially started with a target of distributing free bicyclers to 50 thousand poor girls to boost women’s education and reduce school drop-out rate.

With the additional five thousand on the cards, the first phase itself would distribute 55 thousand bicycles to eligible girl students across the state. In a recent exercise, the Department of School Education found that an additional 5,000 bicycles would be required to complete the entire bulk of eligible candidates from the ninth to eleventh standard in all government and government aided schools.

 Order was placed after proper tender for the additional requirement, School Education Minister Chakraborty said today. He added that girl students studying in the ninth standard alone would be considered as beneficiaries of the scheme from the next phase. Girl students with an annual family income upto a maximum of Rs. 1.25 lakh were considered under the scheme. The scheme was envisaged with an estimated financial involvement of Rs. 15 crore in the first year and Rs. 6 crore and Rs. 6 crore in each subsequent year.

 The state government has been providing free school textbooks to students up to the ninth standard to increase the education rate and reduce school drop out rate beside nutritional supplement schemes like the Mid Day Meal.Tripura currently flaunts an average female literacy rate of 83.15 percent against male literacy rate of 92.18 percent.