Tribal welfare gets Rs 4,000-cr push, nothing major for women or children

While an additional allocation of Rs 4,000 crore reflects the government’s greater focus on tribals, the Budget offered no significant increase in funds for schemes targeting women, children or even the SCs.

Written by: Esha Roy

4 min readNew DelhiUpdated: Feb 2, 2023 10:25 AM IST

tribal welfare women child development Union Budget 2023

Sitharaman did announce a one-time small savings scheme, Mahila Samman Savings Certificate. She said two lakh anganwadis are to be upgraded under Saksham Anganwadi, the government’s flagship nutrition programme for children, pregnant women and lactating mothers. (Representational/ File)

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Tribal welfare gets Rs 4,000-cr push, nothing major for women or children

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With inclusive development on top among the seven ‘saptarishis’ or priorities of the Modi administration for the next 25 years, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday said the Centre’s focus will particularly be on youth, women, farmers, OBCs, divyangjan, economically weaker sections, the underprivileged, and the SC/ ST communities.

While an additional allocation of Rs 4,000 crore reflects the government’s greater focus on tribals, the Budget offered no significant increase in funds for schemes targeting women, children or even the SCs.
This Budget, the last before 2024 national election, has increased the allocation for tribal communities from Rs 8,451 crore in 2022-23 to Rs 12,461 crore. Of this, Rs 2,531 crore is for scholarships to ST students in class IX-PhD.

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Under the Development Action Plan for the Scheduled Tribes, which will also extensively cover the Northeast, Sitharaman announced an outlay of Rs 15,000 crore for implementation of Pradhan Mantri PVTG Development Mission over the next three years. In further push, the Centre will recruit 38,800 teachers and staff for the 740 Eklavya Model Residential Schools, serving 3.5 lakh tribal students over the next three years.

For OBCs, DNTs and EBCs, the allocation for the pre-matric scholarship scheme has been reduced from Rs 478 crore in 2022-23 to Rs 281 crore. Although, the allocation for post-Matric scholarships, disbursed by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment through Direct Benefit Transfers, one of the largest such educational schemes, has been increased by nearly Rs 7,00 crore from Rs 5,660 crore in 2022-23 BE and RE to Rs 6,359 crore in 2023-24.
Despite saying the government recognises “the importance of Nari Shakti as the harbinger of our bright future and for women-led development during Amrit Kaal’’, the Budget offered no major increase in welfare schemes for women and children.

The WCD Ministry has been allocated Rs 25,448 crore — in 2022-23, it was Rs 25,172 crore (BE) later revised to Rs 23,912 crore. Sitharaman did announce a one-time small savings scheme, Mahila Samman Savings Certificate. She said two lakh anganwadis are to be upgraded under Saksham Anganwadi, the government’s flagship nutrition programme for children, pregnant women and lactating mothers. But neither Saksham Anganwadi nor Poshan Abhiyan 2.0, another scheme, was offered significantly more funds, getting Rs 20,554 crore this time against the BE/RE of Rs 20,263 crores in 2022-23. This is despite the government facing criticism over high levels of malnutrition among children in the country.

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