PM CARES For Children: Modi Govt Announces Measures To Support Children Who Lost Parents Due To Covid-19

Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi announced several benefits to children impacted by the current Covid19 pandemic.

As part of it, all children who have lost both parents or a surviving parent or legal guardian or adoptive parents due to Covid19 will be supported under the ‘PM-CARES for Children’ scheme.

PM CARES fund will contribute through a specially designed scheme to create a corpus of Rs 10 lakh for each child when he or she reaches 18 years of age.

The corpus gives a monthly stipend from 18 years of age for the next five years to take care of his or her requirements during higher education.

On reaching the age of 23 years, he or she will get the corpus amount as one lump sum for personal and professional use.

Regarding school education, a child under ten years will be given admission to the nearest Kendriya Vidyalaya or in a private school as a day scholar, and a child between 11 to 18 years will be given admission in any Central Government residential school such as Sainik School, Navodaya Vidyalaya etc. or in a private school as a day scholar.

Under the PM CRES for Children scheme, the government will pay for school fees, uniforms, textbooks and notebooks.

This scheme also supports a child in completing higher education by obtaining an education loan for professional courses. The interest on this loan will be paid by the PM CARES.

Also, all children will be enrolled as a beneficiary under Ayushman Bharat Scheme (PM-JAY) with a health insurance cover of Rs five lakhs. The premium amount for these children till the age of 18 years will be paid by PM CARES.

While announcing these measures, the Prime Minister emphasized that children represent the future of the country. He said that the government would do everything possible to support and protect the children in developing as strong citizens and have a bright future.