Helping hand

New Delhi, June 15: India’s apex child rights panel has asked the finance minister to ensure that all arms of the government allocate a specified chunk of resources for children in the coming budget.

The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights has asked Pranab Mukherjee to direct all ministries to create for the first time a “child budget” from within their allocated funds, starting from the 2009-10 financial year.

In a letter, commission chairperson Shantha Sinha has suggested that the finance ministry follow a model similar to the gender budgeting initiative begun two years ago.

She has urged Mukherjee to outline child budgeting as a priority in his budget speech.

“The idea is that within their allocated funds, each ministry sub-allocate a chunk specifically for child-centric programmes. This will ensure that a minimum amount of money is spent on the Indian child,” Sinha told The Telegraph.

Although the budgetary allocation on education was hiked five times in the 11th five-year plan from what it was in the 10th, the corresponding period saw startling revelations about the nutrition and safety of Indian children.

India has higher levels of malnutrition than sub-Saharan Africa and is not expected to meet the Millenium Development Goal for reduction of infant mortality and under-five mortality.

The human resource development ministry, the women and child development ministry and the health ministry are all involved in projects to tackle malnutrition and disease.

The most comprehensive study yet on child rights in India, conducted by the women and child development ministry in 2007, revealed that two in every three students face corporal punishment in school.

Thousands of children, especially girls, are victims of trafficking — both within India and across borders.

Apart from the women and child development ministry, the home ministry and the external affairs ministry have critical roles in ensuring child protection and preventing trafficking.

In his 2007 budget speech, then finance minister P. Chidamabaram had articulated for the first time the government’s intention to enforce a gender budget.

The concept requires each government arm to reserve at least 30 per cent of its funds for programmes and schemes for women.

The release of a ministry’s allocated funds and its allocations the subsequent year depend on its performance in utilising the gender budget effectively.

The prospect of losing out on funds has made most ministries set up gender budgeting cells to keep track of spending on women.

Several NGOs working on child rights have repeatedly proposed child budgeting within the overall budget. Some like the HAQ Child Rights Centre annually scrutinise budget papers to evaluate the government’s financial commitment to children.

The UN has also been urging countries to adopt a child budgeting policy to ensure that the young are not neglected.

“It is critical that we first accept child budgeting as an important ingredient of our budget. We have requested that child budgeting provisions be made in the finance minister’s speech. A minimum allocation can be discussed later,” Sinha said.