People's Democracy

Budget neglects Child Welfare 

The Union Budget of 2009 � 2010 has totally ignored the 11^th Plan target in the matters of child welfare and development.

The union Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee has told in his budget speech that his government was committed to the universalisation of the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) and would extend all services under ICDS to all the children under the age of six by 2012. But as in the case of the aam admi, in the case of children too, the professed concerns of the Congress led UPA government, are not reflected in the allocation of funds.

Out of the 16 crores children under the age of six years eligible to be covered by the ICDS, only less than half of the children are today covered by it. It has been estimated that around 17 lakh anganwadi centres would be necessary to cover all the 16 crore eligible children in the country while only 13.56 lakh anganwadi centres have been sanctioned but less than 10 lakh of them are functional as the necessary funds have not been allotted by the government. As of now less than half of the eligible children are covered by the ICDS.

In this budget, the allotment for ICDS has been increased by a meagre Rs 405 crores from Rs 6,300 in 2008-09 to Rs 6,705 crores. While the Planning Commission has estimated that Rs 45,000 crores would be required for universalisation of ICDS with quality in the Eleventh Plan period, with the meagre amounts provided by the UPA government it would not be possible to cover all the eligible children under ICDS even after another twenty years.

The government has also made no allotment for providing social security benefits to the lakhs of anganwadi workers and helpers who have been working for more than 25- 30 years and are being forcefully removed from service on attaining 58 � 60 years of age.

Considering the importance of ICDS in child development and in the development of the future human resources, the CITU deplores the paltry allotment to ICDS. It also demands that adequate financial allotment be made to provide pension and other social security benefits to the anganwadi employees.

INN