BHUBANESWAR: Even as Odisha is one of the first states in the country to present a budget for Children and Gender Equality and also the first state to release Nutrition and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) budget statements, the budgetary allocation for Women and Child development department saw a drop as compared to the previous year.
The State government has allocated Rs 3,906 crore for undertaking various women and child centric policy and welfare measures in 2021-22. The estimate was Rs 4074.64 crore in the last fiscal.The highest amount of Rs 1,113 crore has been provisioned under Supplementary Nutrition Programme (SNP), followed by Rs 378 crore of the State’s share towards the Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan - 2.0 scheme, which would be implemented with an outlay of Rs 2,286 crore to improve the nutritional and health status of children below the age of six years.
A provision of Rs 279 crore has been under the Maternity Benefit Programme ‘Mamata’, Rs 316 crore towards financial assistance and other support to Women Self Help Groups (WSHGs) and their federations under Mission Shakti programme, an additional Rs 100 crore for construction of Mission Shakti Gruha at block level, Rs 77 crore for ‘Mission Vatsalya’ for undertaking child protection and welfare services and Rs 7 crore for construction of working women’s hostel.A sum of Rs 51 crore has been proposed for ‘SOPAN’ scheme.