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Not Much Increase In Allocation For Child Welfare In Budget

  • 05 Jul 2019

Recently, on 5th July, the Union Budget was released by the Finance Minister.

Relevance of the News: It highlights the allocations made for child welfare in the budget.

Details of the News:

  • The outlay for children in the Union Budget has shown a marginal increase of 0.05%, going up from 3.24% in the last fiscal to 3.29% in the current fiscal.
  • The National Plan of Action for Children, 2016 had recommended a share of 5% for child welfare and this year’s budget allocation of 3.29% is quite less from even that amount.
  • Four thematic areas of child rights include
    • Education
    • Health
    • Development
    • Child protection
  • The share of education has increased marginally to 68.54% from 68.2%, but has declined by more than 10 percentage points from the 79.02% of 2015-16. 
  • Health-related financial allocation as a share of the child health budget has shown a decline of 0.39 percentage point — from 3.9% last fiscal to 3.51%.
  • The Anganwadi services and the Poshan Abhiyan (Nutrition Mission) aim at reducing stunting, anaemia, low weight and low birth weight.
  • While the former has registered an increase of 19% and the latter of 14% in this latest Budget announcement, experts have argued it is inadequate.