In big blow to fight against malntrutition, budget cut for adolescent girls’ scheme

In the last three years, Rs 114 crore has been cut from the budget of the Union government’s Scheme for Adolescent Girls (SAG). Women rights activists have said that the lack of funds may affect the nutritional development of girls, approaching the reproductive age and further increase the number of malnutrited and underweight children in the country.

Responding to a Right to Information (RTI) query, filed by Chetan Kothari, Adolescent Girls (AG) cell of the Woman and Child Development ministry mentioned that Rs 581.64 crore was released in 2014-15 for 11,8215 beneficiaries. However, in the following financial years, the amount dropped to Rs 450.7cr (2015-16) and Rs 467.44cr (201617). Even the number of beneficiaries have shrunk to 10,3348 and 10,7310 in the respective years.

Kothari stated that there was a decrease in budget provisions every year though the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) budget remained the same. “At one end, the union government is promising to wipe out malnutrition and propel women development, but these schemes which are formed for those very purposes are witnessing a step-motherly treatment,” added Kothari.

Vinita Singhal, secretary of the Women and Child Development (WCD) department said that the drop in the budget is closely linked to the drop in the number of beneficiaries. “The scheme is currently run in only 11 districts of Maharashtra and not the entire state so the drop in funds released by union ministry does not put any excess pressure on our budgetary provision,” said Singhal.

Health activists said that the drop in budgetary provision for SAG has much larger impact than what meets the eye. “Since the schemes are run on 60:40 ratio for budget provision between the state and union government, health activists said that when the funds dry up from union government’s side, states usually deny allocating extra money to keep the scheme running,” added senior official.

“This results in lack of funds for effectively run the scheme, which means the adolescent girls lack the necessary nutrition. Ultimately, when they come to a productive age group, they give birth to babies with low birthweight, immunity and nutritional standards,” said Abhijeet More, Convener of Jan Aarogya Abhiyan.