Weeks before the Telangana government embarks on its annual budgetary exercise, a non-governmental organisation Save the Children framed the outline for children and presented its evaluation of where the state stands in terms of human development index.
“This is a reality check. Telangana presents a dismal picture when compared to poorer states like Odisha in some aspects like literacy, maternal mortality, child abuse and displaced children,” programme manager of Save the Children Alka Singh said at a workshop on ‘Telangana Ambition 2030 — Every Last Child’.
Using millennium development goals, sustainable development goals as benchmarks, Ajay Sinha of Save the Children reeled out unflattering statistics about how the Telangana has slipped in terms of spending on children and education and how that has impacted the development goals. “The amount of money spent on child health and nutrition in the state has declined from 1.59 per cent of GSDP to 1.33 per cent. This at a time when the state has increased budgetary allocation for every other section of society,” said Mr. Sinha.
The year 2030 Sustainable Development Goals are part of the commitment by Indian government to accelerate progress on child rights as well development index. Some of the goals are: end hunger, achieve food security, health for all, equitable and inclusive education and gender equality. “The share of money for child protection in Telangana has slipped to 0.05 per cent in comparison to 0.07 per cent in (2015-16). The state is lagging behind in almost all the sustainable goals. Unless the budgetary allocations are increased and the state focuses on these goals, we will miss the target,” he added.
“We have set staggered goals which can be evaluated every three years. We want to reach the last child of the state so that by 2030, Telangana will fare better in indices like maternal mortality, literacy, child health, street children and other parameters,” said Alka Singh.
