COVER HINDI - Ministry of Women and Child Development

2
1.8
1.6
1.4
1.2
1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
Chart 1: Union Govt. Expenditure on Social Services
as a Proportion of GDP
1996-97 1997-98 1998-99 1999-00 2000-01 2001-02 2002-03 2003-04 2004-05 2005-06
RE
7.12 The increase in Union Government’s budget outlays
for social sector has been accounted for largely by three
major schemes, viz. the Integrated Child Development
Services (ICDS), the Mid Day Meal (MDM) scheme, and
the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA). Thus, we can expect
the Union Government’s budget outlays for children also
to show an increase over the last few years, as all of these
three major schemes directly address the needs of children.
However, a deeper analysis of the budget outlays for
children would throw more light.
7.13 This brings us to child budget analysis of the Union
Budget, an analytical tool pioneered by some prominent
civil society organisations, most notably HAQ: Centre for
Child Rights. All kinds of public expenditure, meant for
development of a community, can be expected to have
some benefits for children as well. However, in a country
where children are clearly a disadvantaged section of the
population, there exists a strong case for- identifying that
part of the public expenditure which is meant specifically
for addressing the needs of children; in other words
segregating those programmes/ schemes from all kinds of
developmental programmes/ schemes, which are
specifically meant for addressing the needs of children.
Year
Union Budget Outlays for Children
7.14 Since government budget presents the most
comprehensive account of public expenditure in the
country, the attempt to segregate child specific public
expenditure leads to analysis of the government budget.
Thus, the total magnitude of child specific public
expenditure, i.e. the total magnitude of public expenditure
on child specific programmes/ schemes, is what we refer
to as the magnitude of total Child Budget. Thus, Child
Budget is not a separate budget, but a part of the usual
government budget. Hence, in the context of the Union
Government, Child Budget refers to the total outlays for
child specific schemes in the Union Budget.
Methodology and Data
2006-
07BE
7.15 The analysis presented in this chapter is based on
research support provided by the Centre for Budget and
Governance Accountability and UNICEF. It must be noted
here that the approach towards segregating child specific
public expenditure from the government budget is an ex
ante approach, not an ex post approach. An ex post
approach would require identifying the proportion of
children among all beneficiaries in each of the
development programmes/ schemes run by the
government. Such an analysis would not only require quite
Child Budgeting: Translating Outlays into Outcomes 123