₹2,000 crore less for social sector: Nutrition and welfare schemes will be hit

MUMBAI:THE Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi government’s budget on Friday reduced its allocation for social sector by around ₹2000 crore, of which ₹1,600 crore has been trimmed from nutrition schemes. It has also allocated over ₹400 crore less for social security and welfare schemes. However, it has decided to take up externally aided projects of health sector worth ₹5000 crore, under which new public primary health centres will be developed, while ₹2500 crore will be spent on medical services. This will be done with the help of multi-national financial institutions, a first.

The state has allocated ₹3,215.45 crore for nutritional schemes, which is ₹1,613.34 crore less than what was spent in the previous financial year (₹4828.79 crore). The provision for nutrition schemes last year was ₹2,682.31 crore, but revised estimates show the state spent ₹4,828.79 crore on it in 2019-20.

The state provides nutritious food to school students up to Class 8 in government and aided schools under its mid-day meal scheme. To deal with malnutrition deaths in tribal areas, the state also runs Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Amrut Aahaar Yojana, under which nutritious food is provided to pregnant and lactating women and children in the age group of seven months to six years.

The government also reduced the budgetary allocation of schemes for social security and welfare to ₹5,488.48 crore from ₹5,902.90 crore spent in the last fiscal (2019-20). “The provision for nutrition scheme has not been reduced. Based on the requirement, the government will allocate more funds in the supplementary demands in the next few months. Last year too, we followed the same procedure,” said a senior official from finance department.

The government has also decided to buy a fleet of 500 new ambulances. It has declared to come up a new policy for palliative care and start 75 new dialysis centres. Currently, 33 dialysis centres are operational and additional 22 centres have been commissioned in the state. The state has decided to develop the primary health centres by tying up with financial institutions that provide loans on low interest rates. For this, the state will raise a sum of ₹5,000 crore.

The state will completely replace all old ambulances in the next two years. The state will purchase 500 new ambulances for which an allocation of ₹25 crore has been made, said the budget document.

For the first time, the government has also introduced gender and child budget. The state government has also decided to transform zilla parishad schools by setting up state-of-the-art facilities. “We will spend ₹5,000 crore on the project which will be raised from financial institutions,” said finance minister Ajit Pawar.

Dr Abhijit More, activist, Jan Swasth Abhiyan (JSA), said, “We had lots of hope from this government but the budget is not up to our expectations.”