More Allocation Required for Children of Odisha: Experts

BHUBANESWAR: Odisha needs more allocation for children in order to address issues relating them. This was opined by experts at a consultation on child budgeting held at KIIT School of Rural Management, organized by Center for Children Studies on 25th February 2012. The state has no separate plan and allocation for children as in the case of Tribal sub plan and women component plan, they observed.

Children constitute 40 percent of the state’s population, but only 2.40 percent of the total budget was allocated for them during the financial year 2011, an analysis made on the child budget pointed out. The analysis, presented by the Center at the consultation, reflected on a lot of issues with regard to under utilization of resources allocated for children by different departments. According to this document, there remain many committed mandates of the Right to Education Act which are yet to be fulfilled by the state.

It stresses that in order to achieve the goal of 11th and 12th Plan we need to spend 6 % of GDP on education as against only 2.93 percent on elementary education at present. There is a gap between estimated and actual expenditure in state budget for Elementary Education. It is desired that this gap be reduced in order to achieve the target.

In case of SSA also gap in receipt and expenditure is quite high, i.e. Rs. 331 crore, the document informed. MOM provision for year 2011-12 is Rs 638 Cr. for 65 lakhs children, and this comes to Rs. 4.68 per meal per day, which is highly inadequate to meet the desired calorific value. Scholarships for 26 lakh children are needed considering the existing level of BPL families, which requires an additional allocation of Rs. 19.50 cr. In contrast, there is provision of about Rs 1 crore for 10000 children only. Similarly, text book for 65 lakhs children in primary and upper primary level will require an additional allocation of Rs. 26.75 cr.

The analysis further pointed out that the gap between the estimates and actual of state budget for development of health infrastructure has been increasing during the last four years of the 11th Plan period. In the year 2010 – 11, an amount of Rs. 2.59 cr. could not be actualized, it pointed out.

Prof. Sailabala Devi presented the research findings. Chief Guest Smt. Anjali Behera, Honorable Minister of Women and Child Development addressed the consultation. Smt. Saraswoti Hembrum, Chair Person, State Commissioner for Child Rights, Sri Panchanan Kanungo, Former Finance Minister and Sri Pratap Sarangi, Hon'ble MLA were present. Prof. L. K. Vaswani, Director, KSRM presided over the consultation.