As a parting gift for girl child of drivers and peons in government offices, Prime Minister designate Narendra Modi has urged the state government to set up a fund for their welfare. He has donated Rs 21 lakh from his personal savings which would be used as corpus.

Before leaving for New Delhi on May 22, Modi donated Rs 21 lakh from his personal saving for the welfare of girl child of drivers and peons employed in various government offices. Modi has urged the government to create a corpus out of his donation and set up a foundation that would be managed by the chief minister and the chief secretary of the state. Modi has also asked the state government to raise more funds for the foundation and support the lower-level government staff to educate and train their girl child.

During his term as Gujarat chief minister Modi had set up a Kanya Kelavni Nidhi (fund) for welfare of the girl child. Over the years through donations and auction of the various gifts he received Modi had collected Rs 89.96 crore for the fund.

To give an impetus to educating the girl child Modi had started the campaign known as ‘Kanya Kelavani Abhiyan’ or girl child education campaign in 2003. This campaign was linked with the school enrolment drive aimed at achieving 100 per cent enrollment on schools across the state. under this initiative in the month of June every year, MLAs and bureaucrats and senior government officials go out in every village of the state and request parents to send their children to school.

This was followed by the ‘Gunotsav’ or ‘Celebrating Quality’ campaign in 2009 with objective of improving the quality of schooling in Gujarat. This is a mass assessment process that helps in evaluating whether the large amount of educational and physical infrastructure is being optimally utilised or not. Gunotsav has also found commendation from the central government. The main objective of Gunotsav is to make sure that all children studying in primary schools (Std 2 to 7) achieve basic reading, writing and numerical skills.