A Study On Awareness And Utilization Of Shadi Mubarak Welfare Scheme, Hyderabad.

Marriage is a union of two souls and bonded together for life time. This beautiful occasion is a big time for everyone in family, it will be a little burden to bride family in Indian system as they have more customs and traditions and incurs some expenditure. To support the families and make merrier to the families, government introduced financial support program to below poverty line families. The Government of Telangana has introduced a welfare scheme which operates under the names ‘Shaadi Mubarak’ and ‘Kalyana Laxmi’ for the Minorities and below poverty line brides to prevent child marriages that results from poverty. Except for the names, the functions under the scheme for the beneficiaries are same. The scheme aims to uplift the parents who are not in a position to get their daughters married by rendering one-time financial assistance. About 285 crore was spent towards Shadi Mubarak scheme alone in the last three years. As many as 55,972 girls from economically weaker sections hailing from minority communities got married through the Shadi Mubarak grants. Shaadi Mubarak and Kalyana Laxmi welfare scheme was to support bride family to lessen burden and to eradicate stigma of girl is burden in family. The financial assistance will be provided into the bank account of the mother of the bride by the RDO. In order to take the benefit of this scheme, the family income of the applicant must be Rs 2 lakh or less. The applicants require to update the bank account details of the bride’s mother for verification purposes. The study focuses whether the parental burden is reduced or misused the scheme and at the same times the awareness on the scheme among the minorities. There were no studies related to the particular topic in Hyderabad. Methodology: Hyderabad District is known for Nizam’s. Hindus make up about 74% of India and about 55% of Hyderabad. Islam is the second most popular religion in both: approximately 14% of India, 40% of Hyderabad. The history and influences of both are readily observed in the culture of the city, from dress to architecture. Researcher used Probability Sampling – Simple Random sampling, 70 Sample size is taken for the present study. Results: Chi-square test was applied to test significance of different variables, the significance value is .059 which shows there is statistical association between the gender of the parent and awareness towards Shaadi Mubarak scheme. There is significant relation between education of the parents and awareness on the scheme. The significance value is 0.026 which is less than 0.05