KARACHI, June 19: The Sindh government is allocating an amount of Rs600 million for free distribution of primary school books in the province and for award of monthly stipends to girl students in rural areas during the year 2002-03, it was learnt officially.

A senior official of the education department said the routine allocation of funds for free distribution of textbooks was being increased from Rs172 million to Rs300 in the new fiscal year.

At present students in primary schools in the rural areas and urban slums are benefiting from the free books distribution, but now the government has decided to enlarge the scope so that every student at government primary schools located either in rural or urban areas got the textbooks free of cost, the official added.

Under another scheme, the government will distribute an amount of Rs300 million as stipends among all the girl students of class VI to VIII in government schools in the rural areas. A formal announcement in this regard is likely to be made in the budget speech, sources in the government said.

Under the stipend scheme, each girl student will be given Rs50 per month through the school management committee. However, the students will be entitled to get a maximum of Rs500 per year, as they will not receive any stipends during the two-month-long summer vacations.

Before giving the stipends, the school management committee will also review the attendance report of the students. The government expects that the stipend system will ensure attendance of the girl students and also help discourage their dropout rate after primary education.