Vivek Mishra, Kanpur. During the Corona period, the noble initiative of helping the relatives of deceased teacher colleagues by adding one rupee each is now making the daughters of teachers also suffer. Yes, one rupee... You will think how one rupee can help in the marriage of a daughter, but it is true that sixteen annas are there.
This mantra of financial help has been fruitful through the Kanyadaan-Mahadan campaign of Teachers Self Care Team (TSCT). This contribution of one rupee has also started a new chapter of motivating the society. In this, the team members give one rupee for each applicant teacher. Then, from the collected funds, financial assistance is provided to that family on the basis of need.
In the campaign that started from November 2025, 51,427 people from across the state also gave more money at the rate of one rupee each for the marriage of 257 daughters instead of Rs 257, due to which Rs 1.41 crore was collected. With this amount, Rs 55,000 each was provided in the marriage of the daughters of teacher Nalini Srivastava of Bidhnu development block in Kanpur city and Afreen Bano of Patara.
This initiative was started in the year 2020 by Vivekananda, a teacher from Prayagraj and founder of TCST. During Corona, when he and his fellow teachers Sudhesh Pandey, Sanjeev Rajak saw the suffering of the relatives of their deceased colleagues, the thought of helping them came to their mind. Then more than 150 teachers from about 20 districts including Kanpur, Varanasi, Gorakhpur joined it for the first time.
Currently, more than 4.50 lakh teachers of the state have joined the same noble initiative as members. The campaign is also reaching other states including Haryana, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand. Till now, assistance worth Rs 197 crore has been provided to the relatives of 456 teachers who died due to Corona.
TSCT's Kanpur Nagar district coordinator Sunil Kumar Verma and media in-charge Anup Kumar said that since November, 724 teachers of the district donated money in the initiative to help in marriage. In future, the target is to give a shagun of up to Rs 5 lakh in the marriage of each daughter. Teacher Nalini said that she did not expect that anyone would come forward to cooperate in the interest of the teacher and his family. Happy with the financial support received from the organization. Teacher Afreen said that on receiving information about her daughter's marriage, the officials of the organization gave financial assistance.
These general conditions apply - The teacher should be an active member of the organization for two years. - Must be a participant in the cooperation alerts issued by the organization.
Such applications and help are received through the district wise WhatsApp group of TSCT. Information about marriage of daughters is sought between 1st to 10th of every month. The applicant teacher has to fill the form and give name, address, mobile number, date of marriage, place and marriage card. After this the district unit sends the application to the state officials. Then a cooperation alert is issued through TSCT's website and app. In this, a voluntary contribution of one rupee is sought by telling the total number of applications received. Teachers can also give more amount than they want.