Budget cut will expose children to greater vulnerability, say

Child rights activists today raised serious concerns about the drastic cuts in the 2015-16 Union Budget outlay for a number of critical programmes such as Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Scheme, National Nutrition Mission, Rashtriya Madhayamik Shiksa Abhiyaan (RMSA) and Mid-day Meal Scheme.
The allocation for ICDS Scheme has been reduced from Rs 18,195 crore in 2014-15 budget estimates to Rs 8,335.8 crore in 2015-16 budget estimates.
Likewise, the allocation for Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) has been reduced from Rs 27,758 crore to Rs 22,000 crore, Mid-day Meal Scheme Rs 13,215 crore to Rs 9,236 crore and the allocation for RMSA has been reduced from Rs 5,000 crore to Rs 3,565 crore.

In terms of overall budget, the Ministry of Women and Child Development has witnessed the sharpest cut of 51 per cent from the last budget, the cut for the budget of Ministry of Human Resource Development is 17 per cent and that for the Union Health Ministry is 13 per cent.
The child rights experts said such drastic cut in the Union Budget support for all such important government interventions for children would imply that the children of the country would be exposed to far greater degrees of vulnerability in various sector.
"The Union government's expectation that state government would re-prioritise their budget significantly and compensate for the cut in Union Budget allocation for these programmes seems unrealistic at this stage because the states are being given more autonomy in their spending but their overall resource envelope is not increasing much.

"And the state governments do have a number of competing priorities to address in their own budget," said Executive Director of the Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability Subrat Das.