WANTED – AN EFFECTIVE SCHEME FOR ORPHANS By Poulomi Pavini

“Socialist Democratic Republic” - that is what our Preamble says. Our Constitution is constructed on the magnanimity of the soul of India, on the principle of no man be left behind and all Indians be given the equality of opportunity. It is because of this, that every ‘citizen’ of our society deemed weak – be it because of historical or societal or religious reasons - has been given protection and support in the Constitution.

However, when you think about it, there no “man” weaker on this planet, than an orphan - a child left in the dumpster or abandoned in a park. It is ironical, that there are two crore of these ‘citizens’ and they have been forgotten by the planners of our country and directors of its policies.

An in-depth study of schemes meant for women and child welfare in India reveals a deep bias in allocation of funds in favour of children who have mothers, that is parents or family however ‘weak’ they may be. Though these are justifiably supported they cannot be deemed weaker than abandoned children without any parent, the orphans. In allocation of funds and government schemes, orphans are left far far behind.

This bias arises from the simple principle of democracy, the vote. Mothers, parents and families vote, hence, attention is drawn towards their needs. Their needs are heavily influenced by the needs of their children, thus their children gain priority.

For sixty years after independence, orphans were the “invisible citizens” for the Indian Planning Commission and the country’s Five Year Plans, so much so that the word ‘orphan’ has not even appeared as any deserving category in the 4th, 5th, 7th, 9th and 10th Five Year Plan documents. The last and final 12th Five Year plan had the word orphan in one place and that too while speaking about residential schools. On the other hand programs of increasing schools, of mid-day meals, of child development such as ICDS for all children, of scholarships, higher education, coaching, free hostels, even study abroad for SC/ST/OBC children have been elucidated with increasing emphasis and fund allocation.

All “vulnerable children”, namely orphans, street children, victims of domestic violence etc are categorized as “Children In Need Of Care And Protection” and are covered under “Child Protection” The first comprehensive program for Child Protection - the Integrated Child Protection Scheme - came sixty two years after Independence, in 2009. However the limited thrust and resources given to this scheme are clear from the fact that this scheme has covered less than one lakh children on a yearly basis, since its inception 10 years ago. One lakh children as total beneficiaries in all categories of “vulnerable” children in an India of 130 crores with 60 crore children and Government of India websites estimated 2 crore orphans is ridiculous.

Despite ICPS and increased Government intervention, crimes against unprotected children have risen, and cases like the Muzzafarpur orphanage case, where girls were raped are up nearly 20 percent from the last decade.

The limitations of ICPS can easily be traced to one main factor – Budget and one secondary factor - Attention. The ICPS budget is part of the Çhild Budget - a term which clubs all items pertaining to children in a national budget under one head. To begin with, the Child Budget in India is low at less than 3.5 percent of the Union Budget. Within the Child Budget the share of “Child Protection” is 1.5 % only. 98.5 % of the Child Budget is for children with parents. Thus about 2 crore “vulnerable” children or about the weakest 2 % of India’s population gets less than 0.04 % of the total budget.

It is not like the Government is unaware of this fact. That Government of India’s own submission in periodic report to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) has accepted this and, based on India’s own report, UNCRC observed “The budgetary allocations do not adequately take into consideration Child Protection needs.” The Government of India body National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) states in its publication “Child Welfare Committees In India” that “the current poor functioning of the child protection system that is reeling due to inadequate funds and lack of State support.”

CHILD BUDGET
	Of Interest to Voting mothers and families		No Vote
Year	Education  +  Development and Health	Total	Child Protection
2015-16	78.95%     +                     18.67%	98.62%	1.38%
2016-17	72.14%      +                     26.82%	98.96%	1.04%
2017-18	70,54%      +                     27.98%	98.51%	1.49%

Let us analyse the budget itself. A quick table analysis shows that over 98.5% of the budget is spent on children with mothers, like children’s health which is a maternal concern. It goes on to show the budget is almost nearly reserved for the voting mother priorities- a votable bias- if you may,

Out of the Child Budget of Rs 48,333 crores, Child Protection is Rs 725 crores. With 20 million orphans this comes to less than Rupee 1 per day per child.

What is even sadder is that out of the Rs 725 crores that is assigned for these children, salaries of some staff and some office expenditure and administrative incidentals are also supported. So the budget actually going to children is even lower.

In the budget of 2018-19, the secondary factor of Lack of Attention on Child Protection made things worse rather than better. Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS) has been included as a part of ‘Child Protection’ under an “umbrella” ICDS – Integrated Child Development Scheme which focuses on nutrition for children and mothers and has a budget 30 times bigger than ICPS.

The lack of emphasis on Child Protection is likely to be enhanced further because of this. HAQ Centre for Child Rights has commented “It took two five year plans to bring attention to Child Protection and for the Government to design and adopt the Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS). Now, in its efforts to ‘rationalize’ the child centric schemes, ICPS has been merged with ICDS taking away the spot light from Child Protection.”

This losing emphasis is due to the vote-bias. ICDS is what affects existing voters and gets the attention. However, as policies like ICPS get mariginalised, unfortunately, lives and dignity of many “vulnerable” children are lost in the pages of our newspapers. It is time that the Government realises that the Constitution places “Socialist” before “Democractic” and children with no “parents” of whom Government is the “parent” need to be taken care of like any weak children with parents.