PATNA: After Kerala and Assam, Bihar has moved to become the country’s third state of having a comprehensive ‘Child-Budget’ with proper allocation of funds for child-related schemes.
On Thursday, deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi released the document of ‘Standard Operating Procedures’(SOP) and said that the state government has made a provision to spend a whopping sum of Rs 20,889 crore on child-related schemes and welfare projects in the state for the current fiscal year.
“Be it known that the state government had made a provision of spending Rs 80,872 crore during the fiscal years of 2013-14 and 2017-18. Of this total budget, Rs 67.701 crore has already been spent on various child-related schemes”, Modi said, claiming that Bihar is the third state in India which spends funds through a budget.
Citing figures, he said that child mortality rates in Bihar have drastically reduced from 65 per cent in 2005-6 to 35 per cent in the current times due to sincere efforts of NDA government.
The percentage of vaccinations of children has also increased overall to 84 per cent from32.8 per cent. “Bihar is a young state which has 4.98 crore children including 2.35 crore girls and 2.62 crore boys of 0-18 year of age group, according to the census of 2011. They are around 48 per cent of the total population in the state”, he said.
Elaborating some child-related schemes, Modi said that newborn units are being established in almost all hospitals besides a number of other child welfares schemes being implemented.
He said that the SOP related on Thursday by him are applicable to all personnel involved in the planning, coordination, preparations and reporting for the Child-Budget of the state.