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A Pittance for Our Children
For the last 15 years, allocation to the child budget has remained stagnant at around 3% of the union budget. This analysis points out why this amount is proving completely inadequate in safeguarding the health, nutrition, education and protection of India’s 434 million children.
The first of February was just another mundane day in the remote tribal settlement of Satgawan. Neha Birhor and her friends were busy with their morning breakfast, sattu ka laddu (gram flour cakes), and the Sevika Didi (anganwadi worker) was setting about preparing the khichdi (rice and pulses) for their lunch at the government-run anganwadi for children.
A few hundred kilometres away from this village in Kodarma district of Jharkhand, an upbeat Finance Minister Arun Jaitley was about to enter Parliament to table the budget proposal for 2017–18. By the end of the budget speech it was clear that the honourable finance minister had chosen to be oblivious to the needs of Neha and millions of other children like her.
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