JOIN USOver 70% of Beti Bachao funds spent on media advocacy: Women empowerment panel
A parliamentary panel has asked the centre to keep an account of the spending by states on the 'Beti Bachao Beti Padhao' scheme.
The Committee of Empowerment of Women in its report noted that despite the underutilisation of funds by states the women and child development ministry was sending additional funds to the states. The ministry, the panel in its report said that it did not have adequate data of how much a particular state spent on the scheme.
The 'Beti Bachao Beti Padhao' scheme was launched in 2014 as a tri-ministerial effort to build awareness and advocacy campaigns for the girl child. It aimed to check the sex ratio, and to enhance literacy rates among girls, as well as effective enforcement of Pre-Conception & Pre Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PC&PNDT) Act.
The Committee, a 29-member panel headed by BJP MP Heena Gavit, said that despite underutilised funds by states, the WCD Ministry has been releasing additional funds. “The Committee also finds that the nodal Ministry has no disaggregated information on the spending by the States/UTs on education, health and other interventions under BBBP,” the report read.
In its recommendation, the panel has asked the ministry to immediately take up with the states and UTs the issue of poor utilisation of the central funds.
Under the scheme, each district is allocated Rs 50 lakh with 100% central assistance, released in two instalments annually.
Since its inception in 2014, the total budgetary allocation till 2019-20 has been Rs 848 crore, excluding the year 2020-21 when funds were halted due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Of the total amount, in these years, only Rs 156.46 crore, or 25.13% funds have been utilised. The scheme has also been criticised by the CA&G report for underutilisation in 2016-17.
Panel member Shiv Sena Rajya Sabha MP Priyanka Chaturvedi said that while advocacy is needed, the government needs to back it with implementation and intent.
“If you do not keep a tab on the funds you are releasing, in effect, you are making the scheme useless. Girls can do with the support system, especially during Covid when so many of them have been forced out of the education system due to a digital disparity. The centre and the states must come with effective ideas using technology. What is unfortunate is that the minister is more involving the former MP from her constituency,” Chaturvedi told Deccan Herald.
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