Major boost for health, education

Two sectors – health and education – can expect its allocation in the 2011-12 budget to increase by one-fourth as the two sectors have not got sufficient funds in the first fours of the 11th five year plan. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Jan 27, 2011, 23:33:50 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Two sectors – health and education – can expect its allocation in the 2011-12 budget to increase by one-fourth as the two sectors have not got sufficient funds in the first fours of the 11th five year plan.

The Planning Commission had set a target of spending Rs 14,21,000 crore during the 11th plan but only Rs 10,11,000 crore could be provided till 2010-11, meaning a shortfall of 42 %, owing to two years of economic slow down.

“Increase of this order is obviously out of question,” a top plan panel official said and added that an overall gross budgetary support in the next budget to be around Rs 4,35,000 crore is being expected.

Of the increase in GBS of around 15 %, the highest increase in allocations would be for health and education sectors.

Budget jugglery

Financial target for 11th five year plan (2007-08 to 2011-12): Rs 14,21,000 crore
Provided in first four years : Rs 10,11,000 crore.
Shortfall : 42 %.

What the ministries expect to get:
Budget 2010-11 Budget 2011-12

HRD 42,036 cr 54,600 cr
Health 22,300 cr 27,800 cr
WCD 11,000 cr 14,000 cr
Rural Dev. 79,340 cr 93,000 cr
Power 10,630 cr 12,500 cr
Road 18,000 cr 21,500 cr
Science & Tech 4,824 cr 5,500 cr
Urban Development 5,400 cr 6,200 cr
Minority 2,600 cr 3,000 cr

The panel has found that these sectors were under-funded compared to the original 11th plan allocation as compared to rural development and power. A reason for it was that health and education ministries were not ready to spend the amount in line with the 11th five-year targets.

Now the spending capacities of the ministries have improved the panel has recommended a higher allocation. “They can spend more if the resources are made available,” the official said.

As a result, the panel has recommended Rs 28,000 for health ministry for the budget 2011-12 as compared to Rs 22,300 in the last budget.

Education is expected to get a higher increase with the panel recommending a 40% hike for flagship programme Sarva Siksha Abhiyan and over 30 % increase for the human resources development ministry. Higher education, which got Rs 11,000 crore in last fiscal, may witness an increase of 30% in the budget.

None of the other Central government ministries can expect a similar treatment. Not even, power and rural development ministries, which received huge money in the last four years. Only women and child development ministry on account of Integrated Child Development Scheme can expect an increase of about 26 %.

For the next budget, the respective increase in allocation of power and rural development is expected be around 17 %. World’s biggest job guarantee scheme the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGA) may get just 7.5 % hike as compared to Rs 39,100 crore in 2010-11.

While the social sector ministries such as urban development, social justice and empowerment and minority affairs may expect an increase between 10 to 15 %, the hike for other ministries may be as low as 5%.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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