Everyone, including the government, recognises the special health and nutrition needs of adolescent girls. The only trouble is, the Union government forgets this at the time of actually providing funds for nutrition. Why else would the government cut the funds for the specific schemes for nutrition to only a half of the original allocation?
In the budget for the financial year 2019-20 a sum of Rs 300 crore was allocated (Budget Estimate or BE) for Sabla, the main scheme specifically meant to boost the health and nutrition needs of adolescent girls. When the Revised Estimates for this year (or the RE) were prepared, this was cut to Rs 150 crore, no explanation given.
The BE for this scheme for 2020-21 is Rs 250 crore, and this has been falsely represented as an increase by comparing it with the RE rather than the BE of the past year. The allocation this year is actually less than the allocation made last year by Rs 50 crore. What is more, the actual expenditure of the Union government on this scheme was Rs 622 crore way back in 2014-15 and in 2016-17 it was Rs 482 crore. This shows the great extent in cuts in allocation in recent years.
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