Budget hike for kids-related schemes nominal: Satyarthi

Budgetary allocations for child welfare schemes for 2017-18 may have been raised but rights advocates have termed as "disappointing" this "nominal increment" for programmes for children who account for 39% of the country's population.

Noting that the Budget for 2017-18 allocates just 3.32% of the total funds for child welfare schemes, rights body CRY said the allocations fail to meet National Plan of Action for Children (NPAC) recommendations of 5% funds.

Nobel Laureate and social activist Kailash Satyarthi said he was disappointed with the "nominal" increase for the National Child Labour Plan.

"Like last 15 years, budgets for children have remained stagnant with Union Budget 2017-18 allocating just 3.32% to children. While the need is that of exponential increase, allocations for children have seen only an incremental increase with Rs 71,305.35 crore from Rs 65,758.45 crore in 2016-17 budget," Komal Ganotra, director (policy, research and advocacy) at CRY told PTI.

She said the recently-released NPAC chalks out targets for children for next five years, and states and recommends that atleast 5% of the Union Budget must be spent on schemes and programmes directly related to children.

"This budget does not even meet the conservative recommendation stated in NPAC," she claimed.

In the Budget presented by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on February 1, the increase has been largely in four children-related schemes -- Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (from Rs 22,500 crore to Rs 23,500 crore), Midday meal scheme (Rs 9,700 crore to Rs 10,000 crore), Integrated Child Development Schemes (Rs 14,000 crore to 15,245 crore) and increase of Rs 339 crore in NRHM flexible pool.

Satyarthi, however, welcomed the eight% increase in the budget for empowerment and protection of children and said the government's decision to raise the fund for women and child development from Rs 1.56 lakh crore to Rs 1.84 lakh crore is reassuring.

But he added that it was "disappointing that there is nominal increment for the National Child Labour Project".