Eleventh Five Year Plan

Towards Women’s Agency and Child Rights 203Box 6.9Tenth Plan Schemes for ChildrenRajiv Gandhi National Crèche Scheme is for children of working mothers. Eight lakh crèches are required to meet the childcare needs of an estimated 22 crore women in the informal sector. Till September 2006, 23834 crèches were sanctioned underthis scheme.Integrated Programme for Street Children aims to prevent destitution of children and engineer their withdrawal from streetsby providing basic facilities like shelter, nutrition, health care, education, recreation, and protection against abuse and exploitation.During the Tenth Plan, over 2 lakh children benefited from this.Scheme for Welfare of Working Children in Need of Care and Protection provides non-formal education, vocational trainingto working children to facilitate their entry/re-entry into mainstream education and prevent their exploitation. The schemeis implemented through NGOs. Between 2005 and 2007, 6996 children benefited from this programmeScheme of ‘Assistance to Homes (Shishu Greh) for Children’ provides grant-in-aid through Central Adoption ResourceAgency to government institutions and NGOs for increasing and promoting adoptions within the country. During the TenthPlan period there were 2650 beneficiaries under this scheme.Nutrition Programme for Adolescent Girls was launched by the Planning Commission, in 51 districts, on a pilotproject basis, in 2002–03. The scheme was transferred to MoWCD. It envisages that all adolescent girls (10–19 years) willbe weighed four times a year and families of girls weighing less than 35 kg will be given 6 kg of foodgrains/month forthree months.Kishori Shakti Yojana provides self-development, nutrition, health care, literacy, numerical skills, and vocational skills toadolescent girls between 11 and 18 years of age.Programme for Juvenile Justice provides 50% assistance to State Governments and UT administrations for establishmentand maintenance of various levels of institutions for juveniles in conflict with law and children in need of care and protection.Almost 2 lakh children were covered during the Tenth Plan.ICDS6.91 In accordance with the NCMP commitmentand SC directive for universalization, the coverageunder ICDS was expanded from 5652 sanctionedprojects at the beginning of the Tenth Plan to 6291projects and 10.53 lakh anganwadi centres sanctionedup to March 2007. Of this, 5670 projects were operationalthrough 7.81 lakh Anganwadi Centres bythe end of Tenth Plan. Until December 2006, 6.62crore beneficiaries comprising 5.46 crore childrenand 1.16 crore pregnant and lactating mothers werecovered.6.92 In addition to the above schemes, the Tenth Planadopted new policies like the National Charter forChildren, 2003. In 2005, the National Commission forthe Protection of Child Rights Act was passed toprovide for the constitution of a National Commissionand State Commissions for protection of childrights and for children’s courts for speedy trial ofoffences against children or violation of child rights.The National Plan of Action for Children 2005 wasalso formulated to address the specific commitmentsset out in the MDGs. Further important amendmentswere carried out in the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protectionof Children) Act, 2000 in 2006.6.93 Despite these measures we have fallen short ofthe Tenth Plan targets, partly because they were unrealisticand partly because of poor implementation ofschemes. For instance it took two decades to reducethe gender gap in literacy from 26.62 % in 1981 to21.69% in 2001, but the Tenth Plan envisaged a reductionby 50% in five years.6.94 Lack of adequate budgetary allocations (as seenfrom Table 6.5 below on Sectoral allocation and expenditurein Budget for Children, BFC as percentageof the Union Budget), has also impacted on thecountry’s ability to meet the MDGs with respect tochildren.6.95 Table 6.5 on BFC clearly demonstrates that despitethe alarming increase in various forms of crimesagainst children, child protection remains a largelyneglected sector.