Nitish Kumar launches e Z-Pay cards for students

Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar today launched e Z-Pay cards for students belonging to scheduled tribes, scheduled castes, backward and extremely backward castes for payment of stipends to them for their performance in the matric examination.

"We have in principle decided to give promotion fund of Rs10,000 to each student who stood first in matriculation examination," Kumar said at the programme.

He said that the state government would also encourage students from SC/ST and extremely backward classes by enhancing facilities to enable them to complete their studies.

Kumar said the state government's uniform and cycle distribution schemes had encouraged enrolment of girls in schools.

As against 1.70 lakh girls studying in standard IX in Bihar in 2007, the number had increased to 5.55 lakh in 2010, he said.

Kumar said the state government would conduct medical examination of around 3.40 crore students during the next financial year to make health cards available them.

Minister for backward and extremely backward class welfare Hariprasad Sah, SC/ST welfare minister Jitan Ram Manjhi, food minister Shyam Rajak, mines and geology minister Satyadeo Narain Arya also spoke.