3 min readLucknowMar 9, 2026 01:03 PM IST
First published on: Mar 9, 2026 at 07:46 AM IST
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Sunday said the Uttar Pradesh government will soon start distribution of free scooters to meritorious female students under the Lakshmibai Scooty Scheme with a view to empowering college-going girls in the state.
The announcement to distribute free scooters to meritorious girl students, one of BJP’s main poll promises in 2022, comes in the run-up to the Assembly elections next year.
Addressing a state-level programme in Lucknow on International Women’s Day, the CM said in the first phase of the scheme meritorious girls studying in the final year of graduation and post-graduation will receive scooters.
Also, the Chief Minister honoured beneficiaries of several government schemes and inaugurated the Pink Rozgar Mahakumbh 2026, an employment fair aimed at providing job opportunities to women.
He also announced that the next phase of Mission Shakti, the state’s flagship programme focused on women’s “safety, dignity and self-reliance”, will begin during the Navratri.
The transformation witnessed in Uttar Pradesh after 2017 is a result of governance based on the 5T framework— tradition, technology, transparency, trust and transformation, he said, adding, “When tradition, technology, transparency and trust come together, transformation takes place. Uttar Pradesh has become a model of this approach.”
Highlighting welfare schemes for girls, the Chief Minister said the Mukhyamantri Kanya Sumangala Yojana provides a financial package of Rs 25,000 from birth to graduation, benefiting about 27 lakh girls in the state. Under the Mukhyamantri Samuhik Vivah Yojana, the government now spends Rs 1 lakh per marriage, and more than 4 lakh women have already benefited from this, he claimed.
The government, he said, has also worked to increase women’s participation in the workforce. “Earlier, female workforce participation in Uttar Pradesh was around 13%, but today it has increased to 36–37%,” he said.
Referring to women’s safety, Adityanath said 20% of posts in the UP Police have been reserved for women, increasing their numbers from nearly 10,000 before 2017 to over 44,000 now.
He also announced the construction of working women’s hostels with a capacity of 500 each in districts, including Varanasi, Meerut, Prayagraj, Gorakhpur, Kanpur, Jhansi and Agra, with additional hostels planned in Ayodhya, Saharanpur, Moradabad, Bareilly, Aligarh and Mirzapur.
The CM also highlighted initiatives such as Lakhpati Didi, Drone Didi, women self-help groups, One District One Product (ODOP) and the proposed One District One Cuisine( ODOC) scheme, saying these are creating new economic opportunities for women across the state.
“The vision of a Viksit Bharat can only be realised when women are safe, respected and self-reliant,” he said.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath holds a child on the occasion of International Women's Day a tIndira Gandhi Pratishthan,in Lucknow on Sunday. (ANI Photo) 
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