Sixteen-year-old Najmun Nahar Khatun of Arijullapur Siddiqia High Madrasah would have been married by now. Her parents had almost fixed her marriage when she heard about a government scheme that offered financial aid to girl students aged 12-18 to continue with their studies, provided they are unmarried. “The moment I came to know about the scheme, I rushed to the school with my parents to get details of it. This was in 2014. And, subsequently, I got the money and I could avoid marriage. Today I dream to become a doctor,” she said. Najmun, daughter of a fisherman in Deganga village, about 45 kms from downtown Kolkata, will appear for her class 10 board exam next year. The Kanyashree programme in West Bengal that offers a monthly scholarship of Rs 750 to girl students from financially weak families is one of the flagship schemes of the Mamata Banerjee government that her Trinamool Congress believes will boost its chances in the April-May assembly elections. Another is the Khadya Sathi scheme to supply rice and wheat at Rs 2 a kg. This is implemented under the central government’s Antyodaya Anna Yojana, but with the state further subsidising the grains that otherwise would have cost Rs 3 a kg. Trinamool Congress leaders said they will highlight these welfare schemes of its government in the upcoming elections. The CPI-M and BJP, however, don’t give the credit for the programmes to Banerjee. While the opposition accuses the chief minister and her party of trying to project central programmes as their own, their leaders mostly acknowledge the benefits of the schemes. As on February 29, as many as 31.42 lakh girl students have been enrolled under the Kanyashree scheme, with Burdwan , Murshidabad, Nadia, North and South 24 Parganas being the best performing among the state’s 20 districts. Abu Taher Md Mustafa, nodal officer for the Kanyashree scheme in the madrasah where Najmun is studying, said the scheme is helping reduce dropouts among girl students. While earlier nearly 70-80 girls used to leave school half way per year, the number has now dwindled to 10-15. “We are now trying to bring down the number to zero through awareness programmes,” Mustafa said. The madrasah has 1,030 girl students. Some 72km from Deganga in Hooghly’s Sahaganj, 64-year-old BN Choubey is a beneficiary of the Khadya Sathi scheme to provide subsidised rice and wheat. Each family gets 15 kg rice and 20 kg wheat a month under this scheme, which is aimed at providing food to 7.49 crore people, or almost 80% of the state’s population. “We have launched this scheme two months back and we have already reached most of the households by now,” said state food and supplies minister Jyotipriyo Mullick. Mullick said Bengal has tweaked the central programme to make the grains cheaper. “We have provided a subsidy of Rs 919 crore in fiscal 2016 for the Khadya Sathi scheme. We have already procured 24.22 lakh tonnes of paddy, which will give us 16 lakh tonnes of rice, and bought 7 lakh tonnes of wheat,” he said. While Khadya Sathi is a more recent programme, Kanyashree was launched on October 1, 2013. The purpose of the scheme, which has been applauded by UNICEF and UK’s Department for International Development, is to ensure the education of girls and thereby preventing child marriage. The scheme is open to students from families with income of less than Rs 10,000 a month. Along with the monthly aid, the girls get a one-time grant of Rs 25,000 when they turn 18 to pursue higher studies. The state had initially allocated Rs 1,000 crore for the programme, which has now gone up to Rs 1,318 crore in the vote-of-account passed recently in the assembly. The students who avail of the scheme are given a unique ID number. “Apart from helping imparting education to the girl child, Kanyashree has been able to control trafficking of young girls from Bengal,” said Bengal’s minister for women and child and social welfare, Shashi Panja. Woman rights activist Saswati Ghosh said the scheme has created a sense of aspiration among young girls. “Opening of a bank account, handling the money and continue her education without family’s financial help have created a sense of confidence among them. There may be some aberrations here and there but overall the scheme appears to be encouraging,” she said. While Banerjee used her mass movement in Singur and Nandigram as poll plank to come to power in 2011, this time these two schemes – Kanyashree Khadya Sathi – will likely become the centre of her election campaign, said political observers. “We will definitely use Kanyashree scheme as well Khadya Sathi scheme to reach out to rural Bengal in the upcoming assembly elections,” a Trinamool leader said. “Both are unique schemes designed by Didi.” The CPI-M and BJP rubbished Trinamool’s claim. Samik Lahiri, a former CPI-M MP, said during the Left Front rule in the state, there were many such schemes to help SC, ST, minority and poor students. “Didi is actually diverting the central funds in Kanyashree and other such schemes and trying to gain publicity. We will fight Didi’s claim during election campaigns,” Lahiri said. BJP leader Jaiprakash Majumdar echoed the same. “We are not against woman empowerment. But Didi should have the minimum courtesy to give the credit to the central government, whose funds she is using for the scheme,” he said. And, if the scheme was so effective, then how come Bengal tops the list in girl trafficking, asked Majumdar. “This simply means that the scheme’s money is not reaching the right beneficiary.” To know the political impact of the schemes, one has to now wait until May 19, the day set for counting of votes.