Yup, it’s that low! This year’s budget saw major cuts in allocation for schemes which directly impact the health, safety and education of children. What’s even more worrying is that there has been a constant decline in the share for children in the budget for the last 11 years. 

Mission Vatsalya is a flagship umbrella scheme for child protection services in India. It encompasses components like institutional and community based care, emergency services and capacity building. However the budget allocation for this scheme remains unchanged at Rs 1472.17 Crore and this is lesser than  the allocation of Rs. 1500 Crore towards the then ‘Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS)’ in Union Budget 2020-21.

This year’s budget has allocated Rs 1.12 lakh crore for education. Biggest portion of this has gone to Samagra Shiksha scheme, a flagship umbrella scheme which is an overreaching program to improve school education.

All the above mentioned ministries play a significant role when it comes to improving the quality of education for the girl child. It is a matter of concern that all of these either had their allocations reduced or received a very minuscule increase.

Only 45.8% of schools have a functional computer and this number goes lower in Government schools where only 24.2% have internet access. The gender disparity when it comes to accessing internet makes it even more unlikely for girls to access such facilities.

As per Economic Survey 2023, India spent only 2.9% of its GDP on education. This is even lower than what other developing countries like China and Brazil spend on education. Surprisingly, even Nepal spends almost double in terms of percentage of GDP

None. In the last five years, the budget allocated for children under various heads like health,education and protection has seen an overall decline. Despite the rising crimes against children as reflected in the Crime In India Report by NCRB, child protection continues to receive the least share of the total budget allocated for children.

This year’s Union Budget saw a historic decrease in allocations for the educational and welfare schemes for minorities. Merit-Cum Means Based Scholarship for Minorities got a budget cut of 87.95%, The Education Scheme for Madarsas and Minorities’ budget allocation was cut by a staggering 93.75% and ‘Free Coaching and Allied Scheme’ which comes under Ministry of Minority Affairs received reduced allocation of (62.03%) only Rs 30 Crore.

There is a welcome allocation of INR 4000 Crore, 122.2% higher from the last budget, for PM SHRI, a scheme intended to improve 14,500 schools across the country. These schools will serve as model schools, showcasing the National Education Policy 2020 (NEP) in its entirety and offering guidance to nearby schools.

Although the Ministry of Women and Child Development is the nodal Ministry for the implementation and monitoring of the BBBP scheme, other ministries and departments have  been assigned certain responsibilities. The Ministry of Health & Family Welfare has the responsibility to monitor that child sex ratio is maintained by preventing female infanticide and female foeticide. MoHRD has to monitor enrolment, retention and completion of secondary education of girls.