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Giving short shrift to children's rights -Jean Dreze
-The Hindu

In the last three years, important entitlements for children have been undermined by the Centre

The recent notification of the Ministry of Human Resource Development, making Aadhaar compulsory for midday meals in government schools, has attracted the criticism it deserves. This notification serves no clear purpose other than to force children to get enrolled under Aadhaar. The government, unfortunately, managed to create the impression that the notification had been retracted, when nothing of the sort has happened.

This is just the latest in a series of attacks on child-related rights during the last three years. A few examples, not exhaustive, are as follows.

No maternity entitlements

First, the Central government has violated women’s right to maternity entitlements under the National Food Security Act (NFSA), 2013 for more than three years. Under the Act, every pregnant woman is entitled to maternity benefits of ?6,000, unless she is already covered by maternity schemes in the formal sector. The Economic Survey 2015-16, in a welcome chapter on “Mother and child”, made a strong case for maternal and early-life health programmes, including maternity benefits, noting that they “offer very high returns on investment”. Yet, the Union Budget that followed, for 2016-17, did not make any provision for maternity entitlements beyond the pilot scheme (for 53 districts only) initiated by the previous government. This was all the more startling as the Central government had assured the Supreme Court in writing, on October 30, 2015, that this scheme — Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojana — would be extended to all districts in 2016-17.

On December 31, 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi proudly announced that pregnant women nationwide would soon be getting maternity benefits of ?6,000. He projected this as a “new scheme” (sic), without any reference to the NFSA, perhaps hoping that the victims of demonetisation would appreciate the gesture. With the Prime Minister finally endorsing maternity entitlements, things started moving after that, but not much: the allocation of ?2,700 crore in the 2017-18 Union Budget is barely enough to cover a fourth of all births, even with the proposed 60:40 ratio for Centre:State funding. Word has it that the Central government may restrict the benefits to one child per woman, against the law. Further, there is still no sign of the said scheme. Quite likely, the government will take its own time to roll it out, and spend even less this year than the measly allocation of ?2,700 crore. So much for maternity entitlements under the NFSA being “a promising opportunity to improve nutrition during pregnancy”, as the Economic Survey 2015-16 aptly put it.

No money, no eggs

Second, the Central government is giving short shrift to the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), a critical programme that was making good progress until it was hit by Budget cuts in 2015-16. The initial Budget cut was about 50%. This was so mind-boggling that the government’s own Minister for Women and Child Development, Maneka Gandhi, criticised the cuts in public, mentioning inter alia that they had made wage payments a “month-to-month suspense”. The cuts were partly reversed later on, but, meanwhile, they had done much damage and sent a disastrous signal down the line. State governments were not amused.

For instance, in a letter sent to the Central government on July 15, 2016, the Government of Odisha complained that salary payments to anganwadi workers were held up by Budget cuts, while planned schemes for pre-school education and medicine kits “could not be taken up”.

Third, the midday meal scheme is also being starved. Like ICDS, the midday meal scheme received shock treatment in the 2015-16 Budget, with an initial Budget cut of 36%. The allocation for midday meals in this year’s Budget, ?10,000 crore, is still 25% lower in money terms than the corresponding allocation four years ago (in real terms, the decline would be even larger). The Budget cuts, of course, must be seen in light of the fact that the share of States in the indivisible pool of taxes was raised from 32% to 42% in 2015-16. The question remains why the axe fell so heavily on children — no other schemes were hit so badly in 2015-16, with the possible exception of drinking water and sanitation.

And then there is the issue of eggs. Many State governments are now providing eggs with midday meals in schools (and sometimes also in anganwadis). This is a real breakthrough, considering the high nutrition value of eggs. Had the Central government taken this forward as a matter of national policy, millions of children would be better nourished today. But here is an interesting pattern: most of the major States where eggs are still off the menu in schools and anganwadis are States with a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, and vice versa. The BJP States, it seems, are not willing to antagonise upper caste vegetarian lobbies. No wonder the Central government is maintaining a studied silence on this matter.

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