Sakhi Sangh in every village: Narendra Modi

Bhuj, June 16: Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said that his government had decided to form ‘Sakhi Sangh’ (women’s associations) in every village with an aim to make women economically strong. The CM said that his government was keen on empowerment of women.

Modi said this while flagging off the Kanya Kelvani Rath from Fatehgadh village to launch the three-day statewide drive to promote girl child education and enrolment of students in primary schools. He sought a public opinion on whether his government’s decision to run such a drive was right.

‘‘The Opposition says the entire government has left the Sachivalaya paralysing the administration. But they do not know that what the government is doing for spread of education was never done in the past? Here the drive is during the two holidays of Saturday and Sunday,’’ Modi said, drawing people’s attention to what the Opposition Congress had said about the drive.

At Fatehgadh. the CM posed a question to people: ‘‘Today, 3,000 government people from Gandhinagar have fanned out in the State. What do you say about it? This is a right step or wrong one?’’ To this, there came a loud reply from the crowd that it was a right step.

Modi said that the aim of his government was to bring down the dropout rate among primary schoolchildren to zero per cent and make literacy rate 100 per cent. He said because of the sustained drive over the last three years, the dropout rate had come down to 11 per cent from the earlier 59 per cent. During his speech, Modi also signaled a strong warning to teachers who would habitually remain absent from school. Teachers’ absence is a well-known fact in the Muslim-dominated Banni area in the district.

The chief minister asked the villagers that in case they found any teacher absent, they need to send just a post card to him. He said he would take stern action against such erring teachers.

The chief minister also visited four other villages— Mamaymore, Manjuvas, Khandek and Moda.