Guwahati, March 16: After last month’s controversial crack down against child marriages in Assam, the Assam govt has made special budgetary allocation for its mission to prevent child marriages in the state budget tabled on Thursday.

Assam govt has made anti child marriage crack down a top agenda in this years’ state budget.

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said his government had tried to ensure that the controversial crack down against child marriage in Assam last month was not communal rather it had almost equal proportion of Muslims and Hindus arrested in child marriage.

All Gram Panchayat Secretaries in Assam are being designated as The Child Marriage Prevention Officers. District Police Forces will continue to conduct intensive drives every 6 months to take necessary action against offenders. There will be a call centre to monitor the complaints.

The Women and Child Development Department has been allocated Rs 200.

This comes after last month’s rather controversial crack down against child marriage that saw 3483 persons arrested across the state. Over one thousand are still in jail.

The opposition has hit back at CM’s justification. “Whatever opposition has raised is based on the NCRB record… IPC 370 is for rape but in child marriages there were no complaints of rapes. Similarly, the POCSO act is for a different purpose but the govt is using it to terrorise people,” said Leader of Opposition in Assam Assembly, Debabrata Saikia.

The Opposition also sees the budgetary allocation as a political move. “The CM said that the child marriage arrests have been proportionate when I said that it’s 70:30 at ground zero, he said it’s 55:45… CM has always been speaking on communal Lines. In the past he said he does not like our votes, now it seems he is already preparing for 2024 polls and the budget is directed towards that,” said AIUDF MLA Karim Uddin Barbhuiya.