by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group
Five Central women ministers up in arms
|
Smriti, Uma, Maneka face massive funds cut
|
Harish Gupta
New Delhi, March 5 |
The Holi this year is not cheerful for five women Union ministers.
They are seething with anger and disgust over step-fatherly treatment given to their ministries by Union finance minister Arun Jaitley.
So massive is the cut in allocation of funds to the human
resources development ministry headed by Smriti Irani during
2015-16 compared to the previous year that she strongly
protested to North Block.
It is learnt that she even registered her protests to Prime Minister, Narendra Modi as well. However, the PM directed her to take up the matter with the finance minister who expressed his inability to do anything in the matter saying he is left with no funds in the kitty. Her ministry faced a huge cut of ` 12896 crores in school education and ` 801 in high education during 2015-16 compared to 2014-15. If the inflation is taken into the account that cut is more than 23%.
The most popular mid-day meal scheme alone faced a cut of more than ` 1000 crores. Even the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan and NCERT also faced huge cuts in funds allocation. The Sarva Shiksha outlay has dropped from ` 28,000 crore to ` 22,000 crore, Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan fell from ` 4,965 crore to ` 3,548 crore while funds for model school at the block level plunged from ` 1,074 crore to ` 1 crore.
Irani is not the only woman minister to face the wrath of the finance ministry. Whether it is women & child development minister Maneka Gandhi or food processing minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal or water resources & Clean Ganga Mission minister Uma Bharti, all have faced massive cuts in allocation of funds to their ministries. The cut in plan expenditure is so huge that one of them even considered to quit the government in protest.
The Prime Minister has been expressing his serious concerns over lack of irrigation and won the Lok Sabha polls in the name of Clean Ganga Mission. But Uma Bharti holding the water resources & Ganga project ministry also found her ministry's cut by thousands of crores. She was handed out a cut of ` 9604 crores in 2015-16. The clean Ganga Mission was allocated ` 2750 crores compared to ` 2637 crores during 2014-15.
This is just ` 113 crores higher. Strangely, the funds have not come from the Central plan outlay. But ` 2100 crores have been provided from clean energy cess under the coal & power ministry.
Maneka Gandhi's ministry faced a cut of nearly ` 11,000 crores for 2015-16 compared to the current financial year and she will have to abandon a number of schemes. Even the Prime Minister's own much touted "Beti Bachao Beti Padhao" project was given a mere ` 97 crores for the whole of next year. The funds for the Integrated Child Development Service (ICDS) alone were slashed by ` 8300 crores. A large number of schemes for adolescent children were shelved.
The minority affairs ministry headed by Najma Heptullah was the only one to find that her ministry has been given a raise of ` 4 crores more during 2015-16 compared to the current finance year.
The funds for the ministry were ` 3734 crores and raised to ` 3738 crores. This is despite the fact that the government would save a huge subsidy on Haj pilgrimage from the next financial year.
However, Jaitley is reported to have told them that he had to give 10% extra funds to the states due to the 14th Finance Commission report and no headroom to accommodate them.
|
