Two decades ago, Nitish distributed cycles to girls in Class 9. Where are they now?

Rinku is among the early beneficiaries of Bihar’s Mukhyamantri Cycle Yojana that the Nitish Kumar-led JD(U)-BJP government launched in 2006, under which girls in Class 9 were given Rs 2,000 — initially in cash and in later years, as a direct benefit transfer to their bank accounts — to buy bicycles. The scheme was a runaway success, emulated by other states and globally recognised for its impact in boosting secondary school enrollment and checking dropouts among girls. The Bihar cycle distribution model was replicated in seven African countries, including Zambia, and endorsed by the United Nations as a tool for increasing enrollment in schools and empowering women.

Rinku Sahu and her daughter Sonam at their home in Nirpur village, Vaishali. (Express Photo)

Now, nearly two decades later, with Bihar in the midst of a crucial state election, the impact of the scheme is visible far beyond these numbers, in the many intangibles. In how often Rinku talks of “freedom”, both in her context and her daughter’s. In the clarity with which she makes her decisions (“what is there to be scared if you are not wrong”). In how she snatches her moments of privacy in a joint family where the working men, her husband and his two brothers, are away in other states, leaving her to navigate traditional gender roles and her own desires (the times she goes up to the terrace just to click pictures of herself in her favourite jeans). And in the way Nitish still kicks off many of his election speeches with the scheme he once launched.

The scheme may have lost its initial sheen; it’s now more a bureaucratic exercise that’s dusted off in time for elections. Yet, for Nitish, it was the start of a partnership with one half of the state, one that built him an unflinchingly loyal base — the women voter, for whom he came up with a series of social schemes over the years. From 50% reservation for women in panchayats (2006) and civic bodies (2007) to 50% in primary teaching jobs, 35% in the Bihar Police, a one-time grant of Rs 5 lakh and an equal amount as an interest-free loan for women setting up businesses, among other measures.

It’s evident in the way almost all conversations with women, even with those from families that are not traditional JD(U) or NDA voters, start with “ladkiyon ke liya bahut kiya hain Nitish ji ne (Nitish has done a lot for girls).”
If one of the goals of the cycle scheme was to further girls’ education, Rinku’s journey would count as a non-starter. She married soon after her Class 9, but had pleaded with her school principal in Gangapur village, in Samastipur district, for the cycle. He finally relented and in 2009, Rinku and her younger cousin Rupa got Rs 2,000 each under the scheme. Her father and uncle bought identical red Hero cycles for the two girls.

How bicycles changed the world

While Rinku dropped out of school soon after, Rupa continued her studies and went on to do her BA. “Rupa and I learnt to cycle on my brother’s bike even before we got the cycles from school. We would cycle to school; the only girls in the village to do so. Villagers would snigger, say my father was spoiling us. Kya collector banengi tumhari ladkiyan (Will your girls become IAS officers)? But he would say, I am spoiling my girls, what is it to you?”

After her marriage, the red cycle she got from school stayed parked at home, but every time she visited her parents, she would ride it for as long as she wanted. “Jab cycle chalate hain toh kitna acha lagta hai na (Feels so good to ride a cycle, doesn’t it)? Ek freedom,” says the mother of two — Sonam (12) and Naitik (10).
“When I cycle, Sonam says, ‘Meri mummy toh tej hain (My mother is sharp)’,” she laughs. “She is a little shy. I want her to be bold. Ek dum se free bole (to be able to speak freely, without holding back).”

‘You’ll get helicopters next’

It was in 2007 that the state government launched the cycle scheme — an idea that is said to have occurred to Nitish when he distributed a few cycles to underprivileged children at a function in Patna.

In a blogpost published on April 20, 2010, Nitish wrote, “When I handed over the keys to them, I could see happiness all over their faces. The memories of those happy faces… remained with me long after the ceremony was over. Soon, I held a meeting with senior officials of the Human Resource department, asking them to work out a plan for distribution of free bicycles among all high school girls.”

Rinku’s cousin Rupa Kumari went on to do her BA and is now a mother of four. (Express Photo)

The government did not procure the bicycles, but distributed the funds to eligible girls (those with at least 75% attendance) through their schools. The scheme required the school principal to collect receipts from parents as proof of the bicycle purchase and provide a utilisation certificate for the funds that had been approved.

Anjani Kumar Singh, who as Principal Secretary of the Ministry of Human Resource & Development (now Education ministry) spearheaded the programme in the 2000s, says the scheme began as part of a “double-pronged approach”. “Since children were covering long distances on foot, we decided to have a high school in every panchayat.

Simultaneously, to cover that distance, a call was made that they would be given cycles,” says Singh, who is now Director-General of the new Bihar Museum.

“It was initially suggested that the government should distribute cycles — because they thought parents will use that money for other purposes. But we insisted that the programme be built on trust. There will only be that rare parent who will take the money and drink it away… So we stuck to giving them the money and letting them buy a cycle of their choice. To have money in your hands is empowerment, it increased the respect for the girls within the family. We initially started the scheme for girls. Then the pressure came from boys too, so we opened the scheme for all (in 2009-10),” he says.

In the staff room of Plus 2 High School in Maksudpur, Gaya district, around 20 km from the district headquarters, Ankita Kumari Gupta, 32, talks of the pink cycle she bought in 2007. “We got Rs 2,000 in cash from my school; my father added another Rs 600 and got me my first cycle. I learnt to ride after a few falls and bruises. My school was only metres away, but I started taking the cycle there. Suddenly, there was a lot of excitement about going to school. There was this big bunch of girls just from my village. It was quite a sight in those days — girls in bright blue uniforms, slowly cycling in groups. Sabka confidence ek dum se badha (Our confidence went up suddenly),” says Ankita, who teaches accountancy to students in Classes 9 to 12.

They learnt to laugh off the taunts. “Villagers would say, Nitish ta bitiya log ke bigaadne mein lagal hain (Nitish is spoiling the girls). You will all get helicopters next,” says Ankita, sharing laughs and memories with a group of women teachers in the staff room.

Ankita now rides a scooter, but the ridiculing hasn’t stopped, she says. “Just the other day, when my mother and I went to the market on my scooter, a shopkeeper said, ‘If the daughter rides a Scooty, will the mother ride a Bullet?’. These mindsets are hard to change.”

Ankita Kumari Gupta, who teaches accountancy at a school in Maksudpur, Gaya, now rides a scooter. (Express Photo)

But somewhere along the way, the girls had changed — they had learnt to pedal faster than anyone had imagined.
According to data from the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), between 2006 and 2014, Bihar made big gains in enrollment and in retaining children in school. The percentage of children enrolled in government schools rose from 72.2% in 2006 to peak at 90.1% in 2011. The state, which in 2006 was among the seven states where 10% or more girls between 11-14 years were out of school, did well to retain them in subsequent years. Out-of-school girls fell sharply from 17.6% in 2006 to 5.7% in 2014 and 2.5 in 2024.

The government’s U-DISE data too captured this trend. Enrollment data for girls rose steadily from 2006 and, in 2012-13, for the first time, there were more girls than boys enrolled in the state.

Rukmini Banerji, Chief Executive Officer of Pratham Education Foundation says the cycle scheme happened in a larger context that was evolving in Bihar at the time. “Though we weren’t directly involved in the cycle scheme, we were working with the government on a programme for bringing out-of-school children into school. Even before the cycle scheme was launched, there was a larger push in the state for girls’ education. The CM used to talk of girls’ education in almost every public meeting. So between the 50% panchayat reservation for women (2006), the work on reducing out-of-school numbers, especially for girls etc, there was a big push and strong support for girls and women. Around the same time there was a fresh round of teacher recruitment, Jeevika (the self-help scheme of the state rural livelihoods mission) etc. So there were pieces that were coming together which gave it a bigger bang for the buck than if you had launched just one scheme alone. So the cycle scheme didn’t just come as just a cycle scheme.”

The conversation in the staff room of the Maksudpur school quickly turns to the election – Gaya voted in the second phase on November 11.

“Nitish’s biggest contribution is that he linked women to economic activities. He proved that it is not necessary to be educated to be associated with economic activities – you can start from where you are,” she says. Most of the teachers in the room agree, before pointing out that the last few years of Nitish as Chief Minister have been lacklustre.

Ankita offers them a dal-bhaat analogy. “This was a state where people didn’t have salt and rice to eat. Nitish gave them that, plus dal. Now they want biriyani. But now he is unable to give them that,” she says.

The scheme, two decades later

Outside another school on the way to Maksudpur, a group of students on their way home say they haven’t been getting money for their cycles. “Not this year, not last year either. We kept waiting,” says one of them. “We asked the principal. He said he sent our names but there is no way of knowing why.”

The principal of a school in Gaya district, whose name is being withheld, says the scheme was a trailblazer when it began. “People would stop on the road and say, ‘Woh dekho ladkiyan jaa rahen hain cycle par. Now that novelty has worn off. It ran very well for the first five years, even 10 years. There was accountability. We would send a list of names of children who qualified, after which the government would transfer the funds to the school account. We would then distribute the cash class-wise. In case of discrepancies, we would approach the District Education Office,” he says, adding that the shift happened around 2015-17, when the process got centralised.

“We now upload the names on portals and the money gets transferred to the students’ accounts. Now schools have no way of knowing which student got the money, which one didn’t; who bought the cycles, who didn’t,” he says.

The Bihar government, however, says the rising number of beneficiaries speaks for itself — from 1.56 lakh Class 9 girls who got money for cycles in 2007-8 to 6.03 lakh girls and 5.26 lakh boys in 2024-25.

“The scheme has certain requirements, one of which is that the beneficiary must have 75% attendance. So if some children say they didn’t get the money, we will have to see if there are other reasons, if they have the required attendance etc.,” says Shivnath Prasad, Deputy Director, Secondary Education.

‘What I want is a Jaguar’

After wrapping up her shift at a Honda service centre at RPS Nagar in Patna, Varsha Kumari, 28, sits down to chat at a colleague’s family-run shop. She was 15 when she got her cycle in 2012. She had already learnt to ride her father’s cycle by then, so her pink Hero Cyclone was a breeze.

“I was very particular about my cycle. I wouldn’t let anyone else touch it,” says Varsha, who works as a customer relations manager and manages a team of 10.

“I don’t know if the cycle had anything to do with it, but I am a much more confident person now than I was as a child,” she says, talking of how she has had her way with her family — dodging marriage proposals, insisting on a career in the private sector (“my family wanted me to join the government”), and setting goals for herself.

“I want to start a business some day. Maybe run an automobile franchise. I recently drew up an elaborate plan for an RO bottling plant at home, but I couldn’t convince papa. But I’ll do something for sure,” she says.

The cycle is long gone — she now rides a scooter or takes an autorickshaw to work­. But some day, says Varsha, she hopes to buy a Hyundai Verna, though “what I actually want is a Jaguar”. “I have a plan. I’ll work towards it,” she says, before heading home.