Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya

It was then integrated into the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan program, to provide educational facilities for girls belonging to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes, minority communities and families below the poverty line in Educationally Backward Blocks.

The objective of KGBV is to ensure that quality education is feasible and accessible to the girls of disadvantaged groups of society by setting up residential schools with boarding facilities at elementary level.

[1] The scheme was applicable since its inception in 2004, in Educationally Backward Blocks (EBBs) where the rural female literacy is below the national average (46.13%: Census 2001) and the gender gap in literacy is more than the national average (21.59%: Census 2001).

Among these blocks, schools may be set up in areas with: The criteria of eligible blocks has been revised with effect from 1 April 2008 to include the following: The scheme has been implemented in 28 states and union territories: Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Arunachal Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Delhi, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and West Bengal.

A total of 750 residential schools have been opened in educational backward blocks.