06 May 2019

Patna, 6 May:  Delivering the Inaugural Address at the National Consultation on “Child Budgets and Programs in Bihar: Current Practice and Future Directions”, organised by ADRI, UNICEF and the Government of Bihar today, Dr. Rathin Roy, Director, NIPFP, New Delhi held out that there is a need for mainstreaming child budgeting in our society and financing for children should take the automatic route. Bihar’s performance is excellent as it spends at the golden mean of 66 percent while it is investing for the future. Citing the example of Bangladesh, he said that focusing on the delivery of public services is very important. Dr. S. Siddharth (IAS), Principal Secretary, Department of Finance, Government of Bihar, stressed that a slippage in the parameters of child development is nearly impossible to recover and must not be allowed to occur at any cost. He said the Government of Bihar will have a separate budget for children from October or December. Mr. Asadur Rahman, Chief, UNICEF, Bihar hoped that the partnership between ADRI, UNICEF and the Government of Bihar would be effective in improving the condition of children in Bihar. Prof. Prabhat P Ghosh, Director, ADRI, gave the Welcome Address.

During the Technical Session-1 on “Child Budgets in Bihar”, Ms. Sumita Dawra, Programme Specialist (Governance), UNICEF, New Delhi was of the opinion that cognitive capital formation is essential for improving the productive capacity of children. Presently, the focus is mostly on the educational outcome. In order to improve cognitive capital formation, the early stages of pregnancy require increased attention. She also concluded that spending on children in the early ages, i.e. 0-6 years, is lowest while it is the highest during 6-14 years, the years of primary education. Though Bihar has witnessed an increase in spending on children during the last 7 years, yet the improvement is inadequate. Hence, it is important to address the adequacy of allocation and expenditure of child budget. Moreover, the need to understand a basic minimum threshold is essential for efficiency of child budgeting. Dr. Barna Ganguli, Assistant Professor, CEPPF, ADRI also presented her views on child budget in Bihar. Dr. H.K. Amarnath, Associate Professor, NIPFP, New Delhi was the commentator of this session. Mr. A K Chauhan, State Election Commissioner, Bihar chaired the session.

During the Technical Session-2 on “Social Protection Programmes for Children in Bihar”, Ms. Shailey Tucker, Project Consultant, ADRI gave the only presentation of the session. She said Bihar has around 48 per cent young population (0-18 years). Total 153 social protection programmes have been evaluated which includes 59 states and 94 centrally sponsored schemes. All these schemes were categorised into four major domains – survival, health and nutrition, educational development, protection and participation. Findings suggest that we need to bridge the gap of targeting the coverage, convergence and accountability, budget constraints, lack of transparency and state capacity. Dr. Nilachala Acharya, Research Coordinator, CBGA, New Delhi and Mr. Anindo Banerjee, Director, Programme Initiatives, PRAXIS, Patna were the commentators of this session.  Prof. Prabhat P Ghosh chaired the session.

In the Panel Discussion on “Enhancing Public Service Delivery for Children”, moderated by Dr. Urvashi Kaushik, Social Policy Specialist with UNICEF, Ms. Avani Kapur, Director of Accountability Initiative of Centre for Policy Research, Dr. Madhusudan Rao, Research Advisor with CBPS Bengaluru, Ms. Nisha Jha, Former Chairperson of Bihar Child Rights Protection Committee, and Mr. Rafay Hussain, Regional Head with Save the Children, Bihar shared their ideas. Mr. Gopal Meena, Labour Commissioner, Bihar chaired the panel discussion.

Mr. Asadur Rahman, Chief, UNICEF Bihar, gave the Valedictory Address. The Valedictory Session was chaired by Mr. A.K. Chauhan, State Election Commissioner, Bihar. Prof. Prabhat P Ghosh gave the Vote of Thanks on the occasion.

Concept Note

As the world moves toward the Sustainable Development Goals for 2030, the mechanisms for financing the mission remain a constant challenge. The call for ending poverty, creating universal access to basic human needs for food and shelter, health and education, water and sanitation, and guaranteeing protection and dignity to all is an enormous agenda which needs concerted policy actions. Never before has such collaboration become more crucial where aligning finances toward this end at the global scale will require commitment to the Goals and across the board.

India ranks 131 out of 188 countries on the Human Development Index (UNDP 2018) and therefore needs to expedite its efforts on human development. Even so and in spite of being the sixth-largest economy in the world (IMF 2017), India’s social sector expenditure has nationally hovered around a mere 6 percent of GDP for the last five years (Economic Survey 2018). For the state of Bihar, even though its economy has grown at a high rate, the expenditure on social sector has not increased commensurately (Economic Survey 2017). With 48 percent of the population below 18 years, Bihar has a bigger challenge for the Welfare of children through multi-dimensional social services and needs to finance them sufficiently. In this context, several questions need to be answered.

·   In a young state like Bihar, what percentage of overall budget is spent on children?

·  What are the gaps in allocations and expenditures, vis-à-vis policy objectives and priorities?

·  What are the policy recommendations to close these gaps enabling the state to achieve it child development goals?.

Bihar has been preparing a Child Budget in the Cabinet since 2013-14. The Child Budget presents a picture of allocations, but not actual expenditure, on child-related projects, schemes and programmes across relevant departments for the given year. But, there is a need to capture a realistic picture of child-related outlays, besides sensitising the system to child-centric concerns across the sectors.

Social protection is another area which needs proper designing of policies and programmes to reduce poverty and vulnerability The economic and social return on social protection is high not only in terms of welfare and equality, but also in promoting sustainable growth and reducing multidimensional poverty. Substantial economic growth in the recent past (both in India and Its state) have, at the same time, witnessed increasing inequality resulting in only marginal improvements in human development which, form is resulting in a proliferation of marginalization. The funding of social protection in India has been much below the global standard, a mere 2.6 percent of its GDP, as compared to 6.8 percent in China, 7.7 percent in Mexico and over 2 percent in Brazil. Worse still, this proportion has fallen in the recent years. Moreover, it is imperative to delineate budgetary allocations and expenditure on social protection programmes, understand the metrics used for their evaluation, and examine the coherence of the programmes in order to identify any gaps in addressing needs and ensure that the programs achieve the intended outcomes. The duplication of efforts through programmes and schemes by multiple departments, while leaving certain areas and persons out of the ambit of any social security, is another area of concern.

In Bihar, the state government is presently implementing a number of social protection programmes and, in the above perspective, a comprehensive mapping of all these programmes is very desirable. Such mapping can inform further policy actions or child development with regard to both coverage and equity. It was against this background that UNICEF had entrusted the Asian Development Research Institute (ADRI) with a study on Child Budgets and also prepare a compendium on all child-related programmes/scheme in Bihar. The proposed Consultation is a follow up to the above study where its main findings will be shared with the government functionaries and other stakeholders. The deliberations of the Consultation will also include collecting suggestions of various stakeholders on the future directions of child development programmes in Bihar.