Much ado about nothing… Budget for Children a mere lip service! India fails to protect its children once again! Share of Budget for Children in the Union Budget HAQ: Center for Child Rights B1/2, Ground Floor, Malviya Nagar New Delhi - 110017 Tel: +91-26677412,26673599 Fax: +91-26674688 Website: www.haqcrc.org FaceBook Page: https://www.facebook.com/HaqCentreForChildRights

1. HAQ: Centre For Child Rights
Budget For Children 2013-14
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BUDGET 2013-14 AND CHILDREN
A FIRST GLANCE
HAQ: Centre for Child Rights
B 1/2, Ground Floor, Malviya Nagar, New Delhi-110017
Ph: +91-11-26673599, 26677412; Tel fax: 91-11-26674688
Website: http://www.haqcrc.org/ ; E-mail: info@haqcrc.org

2. HAQ: Centre For Child Rights
Budget For Children 2013-14
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Much ado about nothing…
Budget for Children a mere lip service!
India fails to protect its children once again!
Share of Budget for Children in the Union Budget
4.64 per cent of the total Union Budget 2013-14 goes to children.
In 2012-13, the percentage share of budget for children in the Union Budget was 4.76%.
This has reduced to 4.64%, a reduction of 0.12 percentage points.
While the total Union Budget has gone up by 11.7%, the increase in allocations for children
is 8.7% with the BfC allocations rising from Rs. 71028.11 Crore in 2012-13 to Rs. 77236
Crore in 2013-14. The rate of increase is therefore not proportionate.
Sectoral share in the Union Budget
As percentage of the total Union Budget, the share of various child rights sectors is as
follows:
Child health – 0.16%
Child Development – 1.10%
Education – 3.34%
Child Protection – 0.04%

3. HAQ: Centre For Child Rights
Budget For Children 2013-14
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A comparison between the share of various child rights sectors in the Union Budget for
2012-13 and 2013-14 shows a decline in the education sector of 0.1 percentage points and
0.02 percentage points in the health sector. In the development and protection sector it
remains the same.
Within the Budget for Children …
The share of health shows a minimal decline of 0.98%. Maximum decline is in the
protection sector to the tune of 7.67%.
Development witnesses highest increase of 11.86% followed by Education, showing an
8.43% increase.

4. HAQ: Centre For Child Rights
Budget For Children 2013-14
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Major Highlights…
CHILD HEALTH
Creation of a Flexi pool to take care of critical child health programmes amongst
other general health aspects requires close monitoring.
A Flexi pool has been created
to cover RCH projects and
immunization programmes.
Therefore, while on the face of
it immunization programmes
and RCH reflect a ZERO
allocation, they have been
covered under the flexi pool.
As of now there is no clarity as
to how this flexi pool will get
implemented, but it surely
calls for very close monitoring
to ensure that critical issues of
child health do not take a back
seat. Clearly the explanation
on flexi pool given in the
Expenditure Budget Volume II
reveals that the flexi pool is
not only for child health and
covers other aspects of general
health too.
CHILD DEVELOPMENT
In order to universalise ICDS, a cumulative number of 7076 ICDS projects have been
approved by the government along with 14 lakh Anganwadi Centres/Mini Anganwadi
Centres1.
In ICDS, the major increase is in the World Bank component for high burden districts –
an increase of 42%, rising from an allocation of Rs. 102 crore in 2012-13 to Rs. 146
Crore in 2013-14.
The allocation for Rajiv Gandhi National Crèches Scheme remains the same despite the
Ministry of Women and Child Development admitting the need to increase the number
of crèches and improve the services in its Five Year Strategic Plan (2011-16).
1
Five Year Strategic Plan (2011-16); Ministry of Women and Child Development
IMR is reported to be 47 at the national level.
None of the targets set under various policy
documents and plans from time to time have been
achieved. The National Health Policy set a target of
reducing IMR to 30 per 1000.
In 2009, nearly 8% children of the children aged
12-23 months did not receive even a single
vaccine.
About 75.5% of children of less than one year
belonging to the highest wealth index group are
fully immunized while only 47.3% from the lowest
quintile are fully immunized.
Children in India 2012: A Statistical Appraisal,
Ministry of Statistics and Programme implementation
28% of new born babies in India are low-birth
weight.
World Health Statistics 2012

5. HAQ: Centre For Child Rights
Budget For Children 2013-14
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A multi-sector nutrition augmentation programme for mother and child was introduced
in 2012-13 to cover 200 high burden districts. In 2013-14 budget, the number of
districts to be covered is reduced to 100.
Development of Children in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands receives the maximum
increase of 193.55% in the child development sector. This is true for children of
Andaman and Nicobar Islands even in the case of protection, where the budget for
welfare of children in the islands shows a 123.68% increase.
EDUCATION
Within the budget for Department of School Education and Literacy, the budget for
Elementary Education is Rs. 41273.66 Crore (74.22% of total education budget) and
that for Secondary Education is Rs. 10,734.67 Crore (19.30% of total education
budget).
Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) got a major push in the 2013-14
budget with an increase of 27.5 per cent in allocations.
Mid Day Meal received an increased allocation of 13215 Crore in 2013-14 against
11937 Crore in 2012-13 (10% increase).
Amongst children belonging to the weaker sections of the society, while allocations for
certain schemes for the SC children have reduced, it has increased in the case of ST
children.
According to the State level consolidated report, a total of 1370914 Anganwadi Centres
(AWC) were sanctioned by October 2012, out of which only 131982 AWCs were
functioning. This yields out the non-functioning of 52002 AWCs.
At present, 22599 crèches are functional, whereas the requirement, though still not
computed, is much higher.
Recent sample inspections of crèches by the ministry have revealed that several of the
crèches were either non-existent or were not functioning. Even in those crèches that
were functioning, gaps in provisioning of services like SNP, appropriate early childhood
education, infrastructure etc., were noticed. Also, it was observed that most of the
crèches were running for 4-5 hours as against the stipulated time of 8 hours. It was also
observed that several of the children were not of working mothers and there were very
few children of 0-3 years age group.
Five Year Strategic Plan 2011-2016, Ministry of Women and Child Development

6. HAQ: Centre For Child Rights
Budget For Children 2013-14
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How does Mr. Finance Minister plan to address his concern for the youth and
their employment without investing in vocational training for them?
A 19.9% decrease in the budget for vocationalisation of education is yet another
cause for worry. The Finance Minister’s concern for the youth, especially
unemployment among the youth perhaps was only meant for the budget speech!
While gender parity in enrolment has
improved, enrolment of disabled
children has gone down marginally by
0.24 percentage points, and is a cause
for concern as the goals of inclusive
education face a challenge.
Twenty Years of CRC: A Balance Sheet, pp 13
HAQ: Centre for Child Rights
Allocation for Hostels for SC boys and
girls is reduced by 48% and 47%
respectively, as against a 60% increase in
the allocation for hostel for ST boys and
girls.
Pre-matric scholarship for OBCs is
reduced by 66% but post-matric
scholarship for OBCs is increased by 44%.
Pre Matric Scholarship for ST Students
also witnesses an increase of 146 %.
At the elementary level, education for
disabled children has become part of the
SSA. Indeed the SSA schools are yet to
equip themselves with special educators
and necessary infrastructure and
equipments to ensure inclusive education.
On the other hand, Inclusive Education for
the Disabled at Secondary Education
(IEDSS) has declined by 28.57%.
CHILD PROTECTION
Allocation for the much needed Integrated Child Protection Sscheme (ICPS) stands
reduced by 25% from Rs. 400 Crore to Rs. 300 Crore. Mid-term appraisal of the
Eleventh Five Year Plan suggested a requirement of Rs. 300 Crore for the year 2010-
112. By the end of the XIth Five Year Plan, all the states and Union Territories except
Jammu and Kashmir had signed the ICPS MoU with the centre. This is the time to
increase the ICPS allocations, but there is no change.
In fact even the recurring costs for maintaining five basic structural components of ICPS
viz. State Child Protection Society, District Child Protection Societies, Child Welfare
Committees, Juvenile Justice Boards and Child Line Services as per the requirements of
law, existing outreach and financial norms of ICPS comes to Rs. 505 Crore, over Rs. 200
more than the present allocation.
2
http://planningcommission.nic.in/plans/mta/11th_mta/chapterwise/chap11_women.pdf
Statistics defy all logic for cutting
down the budget for hostels for SC
children
Increase in the enrolment of ST
children is greater than increase in
enrolment of SC children, and number
of ST children dropping out at primary
level is less compared to SC children.
Twenty Years of CRC: A Balance Sheet, pp 13
HAQ: Centre for Child Rights

7. HAQ: Centre For Child Rights
Budget For Children 2013-14
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Child Protection was never a real concern!
Who has failed children – The Ministry of Women and Child Development or
the Finance Minister? What went wrong with ICPS? Is the government not
aware of its own norms and legal commitments?
In 2011, the Crimes against children reported a 24% increase from the previous
year with a total of 33,098 cases of crimes against Children reported in the country
during 2011 as compared to 26,694 cases during 2010. A 7.67% decline in budget
for child protection is only going to further worsen the situation ( Crimes in India 2011,
NCRB).
An assessment of recurring costs as per the ICPS norms for five basic
structures required in the implementation of ICPS comes to Rs. 505 Crore. If
the cost of other components of ICPS such setting up a functional child
tracking system, adoption services, grant-in-aid for innovative projects etc.
are to be added, the budget requirement would increase even further. Yet
ICPS gets only Rs. 300 Crore!
SCPS
Recurring costs for a State Child Protection Society in each of the 17 states with less
than 15 or less districts comes to Rs. 9,15,62,000. Similar cost for the rest 17 states
with more than 15 districts comes to Rs. 17,45,22,000. The combined requirement
is about Rs. 27 Crores.
DCPS
If only the District Child Protection Societies were to be set up in each of the 638
districts in the country (excluding the state of Jammu and Kashmir), the budget
requirement as per the ICPS norms would a little over Rs. 235 Crores.
CWCs and JJBs
To comply with the legal requirement of having one CWC and one JJB in every
district, an additional required fund of approximately Rs. 60 Crores.
ChildLine
According to the Childline website, there are 259 Childline services across the
country requiring a budget of about Rs. 42 Crore.
Institutions for Children
Going by the Ministry’s figure of 698 institutions for children in 2011-12 (excluding
open shelters, Specialised Adoption Agencies and specialised units for children with
special needs), fund requirement as per the ICPS norms comes to approximately Rs.
141 Crore.
Integrated Child Protection Scheme, Ministry of Women and Child Development,
http://wcd.nic.in/icpsmon/st_abouticps.aspx

8. HAQ: Centre For Child Rights
Budget For Children 2013-14
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Other schemes under the protection sector which witness a decline are:
- Scheme for prevention of alcoholism and substance (Drug) abuse (-23.81%)
- Children in need of care and protection (Chandigarh) (-38.46 %)
- Institute for mentally retarded children (Chandigarh) (-21.85 %)
The 8.33% increased allocation for the National Commission for Protection of Child
Rights (NCPCR) is welcome given the increased role of NCPCR in monitoring some of
government’s flagship programmes like RTE-SSA.
HAQ: Centre for Child Rights hopes this analysis will bring many voices together for
demanding serious and increased investment in the protection of children. When it comes
to ICPS, often enough the Centre blames the States for having failed to use the money
allocated. On the other hand, the states are grappling with some real and practical
difficulties. They are finding it difficult to find people willing to work on the low wages set
out under the ICPS e.g. Salary for a trained counsellors and a social worker, who carry the
maximum burden is only Rs. 8,000/- per month. This is not even the minimum wages
stipulated in some states for skilled workers.
The Child Protection budget and ICPS norms certainly require rethinking.
Child Labour and NCLP
Duplication of Efforts and Wastage of Public Funds
Is there really a need for increasing the NCLP budget given the provision for
bridge schools under SSA?
The one and only one scheme of the Labour Ministry to deal with child labour is the
NCLP programme. Once again, budget for NCLP has increased by 33.3%.
NCLP’s major agenda is to educate children released from work situations, provide
them education and mainstream them into the existing education system. Such bridge
schooling is an integral part of SSA too. There seems no logic for the NCLP to continue
in a situation when education for children aged 6-14 years has become a
constitutional guarantee and provisions have been made under SSA to ensure
mainstreaming of all children.