At a time trafficking and marriage of underage girls are reported to be on the rise again, it emerges that the government has gutted funding for one of the most successful campaigns by almost a third. Numbers shared in the Lok Sabha on Friday showed that funds allocated for the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao scheme fell to ₹33 crore in 2024-25 from ₹92 crore in 2022-23. The latest National Family Health Survey’s finding that almost a quarter of women were married off before 18 makes the government’s promise to rid India of child marriage by 2030 all that more difficult. But, as the Supreme Court observed last December, a failure on this ground “strikes at the very foundations of... the State’s constitutional promise of protection to every child”.