In its election manifesto for the 2009 general elections, Congress had promised that it would ensure that allocations made under the Special Components Plan (SCP) for scheduled castes and the Tribal Sub-Plan for scheduled tribes are in accordance with their proportion in the total population. These two crucial schemes ensure that a proportion of all plan spending has to go towards the most marginalized and deprived sections of Indian society...

While the government is grappling with a huge fiscal deficit and hence large borrowings to fund key social sector schemes, staggering sums of up to Rs 1 lakh crore in a year out of the money allocated to various ministries remained unspent between 2005-06 and 2007-08. Unspent provisions of Rs 100 crore each or more alone totalled Rs 59,000 crore in these years, according to the Comptroller and Auditor General....

The poverty line that the Tendulkar Committee proposes depends on reduced calorie consumption, and fails to provide for reasonable household expenditures on schooling and health.  For some years, the Government of India has been under pressure to change the norms for calculating the official poverty line. Current norms have resulted in gross and manifest underestimation of the numbers of the poor, and, consequently, in the exclusion of hundreds of millions...

The Centre has decided to go ahead with the controversial proposal of constructing Rajiv Gandhi Sewa Kendras at the panchayat level at a cost of Rs.10 lakh each from funds meant for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (Mgnregs). Notwithstanding the opposition against the use of funds meant to provide 100 days of manual employment to the unemployed in rural areas, the Ministry of Rural Development has decided to...

As states get together to launch security operations, official data from the first-ever study done of the country’s 33 districts hardest hit by Naxalites, shows an abysmal record of government expenditure on basic amenities, including health, education, roads, electricity and child care. In fact, the evidence couldn’t be more stark: the expenditure in a state’s Naxal-affected districts is merely a fraction of the figure for the rest of the state...