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Response to Union Budget
2007 - 08
‘Priority of Child Protection lost amidst Promises of Inclusive Growth’
Mr. Amod K. Kanth
Prior to the national Budget session 2007-08 and the 11th Five Year Plan, Prayas Institute of Juvenile Justice organized a series of national and regional Consultations with the Planning Commission, concerned Ministries, child protection NGOs and experts to find out where the children figure in the national planning and programmes, particularly in the sectors of education, health and child protection. Somehow, in the intense pre-budget discussions and in the wish list for priorities, the social sector in general and the children in particular, don’t seem to figure at all. Such indifference in a country inhabited by 440 million children (below 18 years), half of them severely under-nourished with majority being girls, IMR stagnating at 72 per 1000, 12 million disabled, 35 million children in the need of care and protection and 12 million being on the streets, is nothing less than disappointing. The need for protective cover for children does not seem to be catalyzing in this year’s Union Budget. As such the inclusive social sector spending, therefore, has been a great cause of concern with these marginalized children belonging to families working in the unorganized sector, bonded and landless laborers.
Children in India do not create a constituency and the voluntary organizations have failed to lobby for their cause. Our national and international commitments which, appropriately, consider them as `supreme assets’ of the country, have remained wishful thinking and the efforts made have dispersed into multiple sectors, departments and ministries with no focus on the children who need it most, i.e., over 100 million of them who are out -of -school and hence deemed to be neglected and are in the need of care and protection. Despite India being one of the vocal signatories to the UN Convention on the Rights of Child and, at least 10 legislations, 5 national policy papers and 5 national Plans of Action touching upon children, it is almost impossible to locate their share in the national resources.
An analysis of allocations in the Union Budget of 2007-08 reflects that:
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