SRINAGAR: Jammu and Kashmir government has decided to repeal the 8th standard pass clause in the State Marriage Assistance Scheme.
The announcement will be made anytime soon. The clause has been reviewed by the top officers, who have given their consent to repeal the clause.
“We have completed all the formalities for rolling back this clause. The government will make the announcement anytime soon,” a top officer privy to the developments told The Kashmir Monitor.
The decision comes two months after the Jammu, Kashmir, and Ladakh High Court asked the Union Territory administration to re-examine the education clause in the State Marriage Assistance Scheme (SMAS).
A division bench of Chief Justice Arun Palli and Justice Rajnesh Oswal disposed of the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by Abdul Hamid Rather with a direction to the government to reconsider the clause.
Earlier, the government had issued an order fixing Class 8 as the minimum qualification for the girls to avail the benefits of the scheme. However, it triggered a chain reaction with people questioning the move.
In 2022, the Jammu and Kashmir Administrative Council restructured the State Marriage Assistance Scheme to provide benefits to all Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) and Priority Household (PHH) families.
Under the scheme, an unmarried girl from an AAY family is given Rs 75000 cash assistance for marriage. Likewise, the girl from the PHH family is entitled to Rs 50,000 cash assistance. The girls can apply online, and after a background check, the money is transferred directly into their accounts.
“This education clause was included with a positive intent. It was aimed to push parents to educate their girls. Since there was an incentive for marriage, the thinking was that the parents would admit their girls to schools,” said an officer.
However, civil society groups did not agree with the government over this issue. “It is very hard for parents who struggle for two square meals to send girls to school. It is easier said than done. We need to put ourselves into their shoes and then decide. This clause was arbitrary,” said Umar Wani, who heads `We The Helping Hands Foundation’, a non-profit organisation which has married off 1300 girls so far.
It may be noted that thirty-five years of turmoil have torn apart the social fabric in Kashmir. Late marriages, infertility, and a depleting sex ratio have become rampant in Kashmir. National Family Health Survey data for 2019-20 have revealed that J&K has one of the lowest fertility rates in the country. J&K has also recorded the highest decline in the fertility rate between the 2015-16 survey and the latest one. In 1991, the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) in Jammu and Kashmir was 3.6. It declined to 2.3 in 2007, and now it has started to ring alarm bells in society.