ALL public expenditure meant for development of a community can be expected to have some benefits for children as well. However, in a country where children are clearly a disadvantaged section, there exists a strong case for identifying that part of the public expenditure specifically earmarked for addressing their needs. Such an exercise requires segregating those schemes which are specifically meant for addressing the needs of children, and it is this expenditure which is referred to as the magnitude of total Child Budget. To reiterate, child budget is not a separate entity, but a part of the normal government budget.

In India, child budgeting is fast emerging as an analytical tool for assessing the priorities accorded by governments to children in public spending. Some prominent civil society organizations which have done pioneering work in the field of child budgeting are HAQ: Centre for Child Rights, New Delhi; Concerned Citizens for Community Health and Development, Jaipur and Indian Council for Child Welfare, Tamil Nadu. The Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD) of the Government of India has also shown a keen interest in child budgeting.

The present article focuses on tracking the expenditures on those schemes from all kinds of developmental schemes in the union budget which are specifically meant for addressing the needs of children. The union government ministries which have child specific schemes are: (i) Women and Child Development; (ii) Human Resource Development; (iii) Health and Family Welfare; (iv) Labour and Employment; (v) Social Justice and Empowerment; (vi) Tribal Affairs; (vii) Minority Affairs; and (viii) Youth Affairs and Sports.

The data pertaining to budget outlays on child specific schemes by the above-mentioned ministries used in the present analysis have been compiled from the Expenditure Budget Volume II (Notes on Demands for Grants) in the union budgets of various years.

 

As shown in Chart 1, the total magnitude of the child budget within the union budget, i.e. the aggregate out-lay for child specific schemes as a proportion of total budget outlay by the union government, has increased from 4.86% in 2006-07 (BE) to 5.08% in 2007-08 (BE).

More than the inadequate magnitude of child budget, its sectoral composition also raises serious concerns. The present analysis divides the entire child budget into four categories – child development, child health – child education and child protection, based on the different needs of children. Thus, each of the child specific schemes selected from the union budget is classified under one of these four categories.

Outlays for child development as a proportion of total outlays by the union government have increased from 0.86% in 2006-07 (BE) to 0.88% in 2007-08 (BE). The union government’s outlay for child health as a proportion of its total budget outlay shows a decline from 0.56% in 2006-07 (BE) to 0.52 % in 2007-08 (BE). Budgetary provision for child education, as a proportion of total union budget, shows an increase from 3.41% in 2006-07 (BE) to 3.63% in 2007-08 (BE). This increase in the priority accorded to child education in 2007-08 (BE) is mainly on account of a substantial rise in the allocation for the mid-day meal scheme and a near doubling of the allocation for secondary education under the Ministry of Human Resource Development.

Total outlays for child education in the union budget registered an increase from Rs 19,231.24 crore in 2006-07 (BE) to Rs 23,244.43 crore in 2007-08 (BE). However, it has been argued by several observers that over the last decade, the states’ efforts towards containing their fiscal crisis have resulted in a reduction in the priority for education within their budgets. Also, the current level of total public spending on education, at roughly 4% of GDP, is much lower than the 6% of GDP which the Kothari Commission had recommended (in the late 1960s) as the desired level of total public spending on education in India to be achieved by 1986. The outlay on child protection, however, registered an increase from 0.034% of total union budget in 2006-07 (BE) to 0.053% of total union budget in 2007-08 (BE). Thus, we have a sectoral composition of the total child budget which is disproportionately tilted in favour of child education.

 

With budget 2007-08, the present union government has started several new schemes for children. Table 2, details some of these new schemes for children. While the launch of all these schemes is a welcome step, the low magnitude of funds provided raises questions over the willingness of the present government to actually implement these schemes in 2007-08.

Since the late 1990s in case of some of the major centrally sponsored schemes for children, central government funds have been provided directly to the programme implementing agencies formed in the states. The respective ministries in the central government have been directly transferring (either whole or a substantial part of) the funds meant for states to the autonomous state/district level societies constituted specifically for implementing the scheme. The largest (in terms of funds) among such schemes are: District Primary Education Programme (funds transferred directly by MHRD, GOI, to the State Implementation Society for DPEP), Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (State Implementation Society for SSA), Reproductive and Child Health Programme (State Committee for Voluntary Action/ SCOVA), National Child Labour Project (the Project Committee), and Indo-US Matching Grants (Indus) Project (the Project Committee).

Table 3 presents a comparison of the flow of funds for the child specific schemes through state budgets and those bypassing the state budgets. It can be seen that out of the total child budget of Rs 27,415.07 crore in 2006-07 (BE), only Rs 13,860.54 crore has been provided through the state budget. The rest of Rs 13,259.24 crore is directly provided by the central government ministries to the state/district level programme implementing agencies. The union budget 2007-08 (BE) also presents a similar break-up with an amount of Rs 13,554.53 crore bypassing the state budgets out of the total allocation of Rs 32,540.7 crore. Mainly, the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, the Flexible Pool of Reproductive Child Health- II, Pulse Polio Immunization programme, the National Child Labour Project and the Indo-US Project account for this huge amount of money being transferred directly to implementing agencies.

The rationale for such a fund flow arrangement, which obviously restricts the autonomy of state governments over the use of central funds, is possibly to avoid delays in fund flow up to the level of programme implementing agencies as also to keep the important schemes independent of the fund availability situation in the state governments. However, the utilization of funds in such schemes needs to be studied carefully so as to evaluate the success of these arrangements.

 

Based on the discussion presented above, we may conclude that the efforts of the union government over the last few years at stepping up priorities for children in the union budget leave much to be desired. The total magnitude of resources earmarked for children in union budget 2007-08, at only 5.08% of the total budget, appears grossly inadequate to address the various problems confronting children in India. Moreover, even within this small quantum of resources earmarked for children, the sectoral composition is heavily distorted. As a result, interventions in important sectors, such as child health and child protection, remain severely under-funded. This raises a serious concern when we take into account the fact that union budget outlays for children provide the main share of funds for plan expenditure on children in the states at the current juncture.