The Odisha Alliance for Child Rights (OACR) has demanded provision made in the State Budget to protect and promote child rights. The demand was made at a seminar organised by the OACR here on Monday.
The speakers said children constitute as much as 38.8 per cent of the State’s population as per the last Census.
“Children represent not just Odisha’s future but are integral to securing Odisha’s present. Yet, development indicators continue to show slow progress towards securing their welfare and delivering their basic rights,” they said.
“The OACR, an alliance of child rights groups, however, welcomed the decision of the State Government to seek suggestions from public for the 2016-17 Budget through website and SMS,” said OACR chairman Ranjan Kumar Mohanty.
He said there is still a huge gap between the money needed to fulfil the rights of children in the State and the money promised in the budget and between allocation and actual expenditure in the programme delivering mechanisms.
UNICEF Child Protection Specialist lN Nanda, Adoption Centrum’s Ruby Rout, CRY-Kolkata’s Ashish Sarkar, Save the Children’s Maitrayee Mondol and Aide-et-Action activist Debendra Kumar Swain focused on increase of investment for children in various sectors, including child health, child development, child education and children in difficult circumstances.
The participants also emphasised on allocation of finances for implementation of a State plan of action for elimination of child labour, specialised healthcare for newborns at different level, more observation homes, residential childcare institutions at source and childcare and learning centres at destination points in the State.
These facilities would facilitate addressing the issues of children in migration, allocate adequate finances to implement the norms of right of children to free and compulsory Education Act and childcare institutions for children with disability, etc.
CYSD-OBAC senior research fellow Surendra Sahoo gave a presentation on “Budget for children in Odisha context: Trend & future prospective” in which he pointed out that the budgetary provisions are not being raised over the years.