Govt to consider child sensitivity while budgeting public facilities, common services

Public facilities and common services in India would soon be financed and designed considering the interest of children in mind. Ministry of Women and Child Development under its scheme “Mission Vatsalya” on Thursday asked State Governments/UT Administrations to prepare their financial proposal and plans for the year 2022-23 under 'Mission Vatsalya Scheme'. 

The ministry also issued the detailed guidelines for the scheme which promotes the family-based non-institutional care of children in difficult circumstances based on the principle of institutionalization of children as a measure of last resort.

Promoting child budgeting, the central government said that the new scheme takes cognizance of the fact that a large number of schemes are being implemented for people, irrespective of age or gender.

“However, since the facilities or services are created with an adult perspective, they are often unable to complement the need of children. For example, the drinking water taps in public places are mostly at a height not suitable for children,” the guidelines document said adding that as a result, a considerable number of young beneficiaries are unintentionally deprived of the services.

“It is necessary to have a child sensitive orientation while building public facilities or providing common services. Under Mission Vatsalya, all the Ministries, departments and States shall be pursued to adequately invest for children under their schemes and maintain a child sensitive disposition while designing the programmes,” the guideline document said. 

The scheme has also proposed to conduct a National Child Survey and development of Child Index in collaboration with Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI).

“It is necessary to map the needs of children through a periodic Child survey, so as to ensure suitable response in terms of policy, programmes or projects. With the help of the Child Index, Mission Vatsalya Guidelines 43 performance of various Districts, States and UTs will be evaluated and specific needs/areas will be identified for designing targeted interventions,” the government guidelines added.

Mission Vatsalya erstwhile Child Protection Services (CPS) Scheme, aims to ensure opportunities to enable children to discover their full potential and assist them in flourishing in all respects, in a sustained manner, foster a sensitive, supportive and synchronized ecosystem for development of children, assist States/UTs in delivering the mandate of the Juvenile Justice Act 2015 and achieve the SDG goals.

Mission Vatsalya has components to improve functioning of statutory bodies; strengthen service delivery structures; upscale institutional care/services; encourage non-institutional community-based care; emergency outreach services; training and capacity building.

The scheme, according to the government, shall be implemented as a centrally sponsored scheme in partnership with states and UT administrations to support the them in universalizing access and improving quality of services across the country. The fund sharing pattern as prescribed by Ministry of Finance shall be in the ratio of 60:40 between Centre and State and Union Territories with Legislature, respectively.