Sabooj Sathi Scheme

What is the Sabooj Sathi scheme?

Sabooj Sathi is the free bicycle scheme of the Government of West Bengal, run by the School Education Department. The scheme gives one bicycle, free of cost, to every student studying in Classes 9 to 12 in a government school, a government-aided school or a recognised madrasah anywhere in the state.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee launched Sabooj Sathi in 2015. The Bengali name means "green companion", a reference to the bicycle as a clean, zero-fuel way for a student to reach school. Some later state communication also refers to the bicycle distribution under the name Sarathi, but the programme readers know, and the portal name, remains Sabooj Sathi.

More than 1.20 crore bicycles have been distributed since the scheme began, covering around 40 lakh students across Classes 9 to 12 at any one time. Those numbers put Sabooj Sathi among the largest bicycle distribution programmes anywhere in the world, and the scheme has been cited by the state as one of its flagship school-retention measures.

What problem does Sabooj Sathi solve?

Sabooj Sathi has two stated objectives, both of them practical rather than symbolic.

The first is reducing dropouts. In much of rural West Bengal the nearest secondary or higher secondary school is several kilometres from home. A student who has to walk that distance twice a day, especially a girl, is far more likely to stop attending after Class 8. A bicycle turns a 45-minute walk into a 15-minute ride and removes the daily bus or van fare from the household budget.

The second is encouraging higher education. The scheme deliberately starts at Class 9, the point at which secondary education begins and at which dropout rates have historically been highest. By handing the bicycle over at that transition, the state ties the benefit to the decision to continue.

There is a third, less-discussed effect. Because the bicycles are procured in very large volumes, Sabooj Sathi has been a substantial source of orders for bicycle manufacturers and for local assembly and repair work in the state.

Who is eligible for Sabooj Sathi, and who is not eligible?

A student is covered if:

• The student is enrolled in Class 9, 10, 11 or 12.
• The school is a government school, a government-aided school or a recognised madrasah in West Bengal.
• The student's name appears in the school's enrolment record uploaded to the Sabooj Sathi portal.

Sabooj Sathi is universal within that group. There is:

• No income limit. A family's earnings are irrelevant.
• No caste or community condition. General, SC, ST, OBC and minority students are all covered on the same terms.
• No gender restriction. Boys and girls both receive bicycles.
• No marks condition. Academic performance is not a criterion.

A student cannot apply, or is not eligible, if:

• The student is in a class below 9 or has left after Class 12.
• The student studies in an unaided private school, which falls outside the scheme's school network.
• The student is not enrolled in a West Bengal school.
• The student has already received a Sabooj Sathi bicycle in an earlier class. One bicycle is issued per student, and Aadhaar-based checking at distribution is used to catch repeats.

How to apply for a Sabooj Sathi bicycle

Sabooj Sathi is not an application-based scheme in the ordinary sense. A student never fills a form. The steps below describe what actually happens and what a student or guardian should do at each point.

1. Get enrolled in Class 9 in a government, government-aided or recognised madrasah school in West Bengal. Enrolment is the qualifying act.
2. Give the school your correct details, including your Aadhaar number and your name spelt exactly as it appears on the Aadhaar card. The school uploads this data to the Sabooj Sathi portal, and a mismatch here is the commonest reason a name drops off the delivery list.
3. Check that your name is on the school's uploaded list. Ask the headmaster or the class teacher. This is the moment to fix an omission, not after the bicycles have arrived.
4. Wait for the state's approval and delivery. Once the district-level list is approved, bicycles are procured and delivered in consignments to the school.
5. Attend the distribution ceremony at the school with your Aadhaar card or student identity card. Identity is confirmed against the uploaded list before handover.
6. Sign the handover register. Some schools ask a parent or guardian to countersign. Keep any receipt the school gives you.

How does distribution actually work?

Sabooj Sathi runs school-first rather than student-first, and that design is why it scales.

The school compiles and uploads the eligible student list. The district administration, working through the District Inspector of Schools, consolidates those lists and forwards the requirement. The state procures bicycles centrally in bulk and ships consignments to the district, which routes them to individual schools. The school then holds a distribution ceremony, usually in the school grounds, and hands the bicycles over against Aadhaar-based identity confirmation.

The consequence for a student is simple: every problem with a Sabooj Sathi bicycle is resolved at the school first, then at the district education office. There is no state-level individual grievance form because there is no state-level individual application.

Why does a student miss a Sabooj Sathi bicycle?

• The name was never uploaded by the school, usually because the student joined late or the enrolment record was incomplete.
• Name or Aadhaar mismatch between the school register and the uploaded list.
• The student is in an unaided private school, which is outside the scheme.
• Consignment delay, where the district has received only part of its requirement and later classes are covered in a subsequent round.
• A bicycle was already issued to the same student in an earlier class, and the duplicate check has blocked a second issue.
• The student was absent at distribution and did not follow up with the school afterwards.

The first four are fixed at the school office. The fifth is not a fault, it is the scheme working as designed. The sixth needs the student or guardian to go back to the headmaster and ask for the reserved cycle.

What are the rules after you receive the bicycle?

The bicycle belongs to the student. It is a grant, not a loan, and nothing is repayable. The state expects the bicycle to be used for travel to and from school, and schools are asked to keep the distribution register so that duplicates can be identified in later years.

Maintenance is the student's responsibility. Sabooj Sathi does not carry a state-funded repair or replacement component, so a damaged or stolen bicycle is not replaced under the scheme. Some districts have run local repair camps alongside distribution, but that is a district initiative rather than a guaranteed part of the programme.

Where do you complain about a Sabooj Sathi problem?

• Your headmaster or head of institution, who holds the uploaded list and the distribution register. Start here for every complaint.
• The District Inspector of Schools or the District Education Officer for your district, if the school does not resolve it.
• The School Education Department, Government of West Bengal, and the departmental portal at wbsed.gov.in.
• The Sabooj Sathi portal at wbsaboojsathi.gov.in, which publishes district-wise distribution data.

The Sabooj Sathi bicycle is completely free. No school, teacher, committee member, local leader or agent is entitled to charge a fee, a deposit, a "registration cost" or a "handling charge" for handing over a bicycle. Any such demand should be reported directly to the District Inspector of Schools.

How to check your Sabooj Sathi bicycle status

Sabooj Sathi has no individual application, so there is no personal tracking ID, login, or SMS status update the way a scholarship or pension scheme would have. What exists instead is a paper trail at the school and a public district-wise dataset at the state level. Here is how to actually find out where a student stands.

1. Ask the class teacher or headmaster whether the name is on the uploaded list. This is the only record that matters at the individual level. The school uploads the Class 9 enrolment list to the Sabooj Sathi system, and that list is what determines who gets a bicycle in that year's consignment. A student's name can be checked against this list at any point in the school year, not only at distribution time.

2. Ask which consignment round the school is in. Districts receive bicycles in batches rather than all at once for the whole state. A school may have received cycles for half its eligible Class 9 students and still be waiting on the rest. The headmaster or the school clerk who handles the Sabooj Sathi register will know whether the school is still waiting on stock or has already distributed its allotment.

3. Check the distribution register if a ceremony has already happened. Every school is expected to keep a signed handover register recording which students received a bicycle and when. If a student missed the ceremony (absent that day, joined the school late, or had a documentation issue that was later resolved), the register shows whether a bicycle is still reserved and pending handover.

4. Look up district-wise distribution figures on the Sabooj Sathi portal, wbsaboojsathi.gov.in. The portal publishes cumulative and district-level numbers on bicycles distributed, which is useful for confirming that a district's rollout for the current academic year is underway or complete, though it does not carry individual student-level status.

5. Escalate to the District Inspector of Schools' office if the school itself cannot say where a student's bicycle stands, for example after a transfer between schools mid-year or when a school closes down mid-cycle. The district office holds the consolidated list across all schools in its jurisdiction and can confirm whether a particular school's requirement has been sanctioned, dispatched, or is still pending.

Because the scheme runs through the school rather than through a citizen-facing tracking system, the fastest and most reliable status check will almost always be the conversation with the school, not a portal search. The portal is useful for verifying the state's overall distribution progress, not for tracking one student's bicycle.