Taking stock of performances, Prime Minister Narendra Modi reviewed the functioning of four social sector Ministries on Friday.
The Ministers from Women and Child Development, Human Resource Development, Water Resources and Food Processing made presentations to the Prime Minister, where they presented a progress report of their Ministries. They also discussed the problems facing their functioning.
Sources said that one of the thrust areas of discussion were budget cuts across social sector Ministries due to which several projects in individual Ministries had to be cut short.
“We have made a decent progress on our set goals for the year. We could set up our first one stop rape crises centre, get the Juvenile Justice (Care and protection) Bill passed, make the required changed in adoption procedures and start the process of revamping anganwadi centres,” said an official from the Ministry of Woman and Child Development.
“We have been a little perturbed about the budget cuts which cut short our plans. The national nutrition mission has not been able to take off; the rape crises centres which were first planned for all districts have been cut short from 660 to 36 among the rest. We will be seeking for more funds,” said the official.
The Woman and Child Development Ministry’s funds were slashed to `10,382.40 crore from `18,588.39 crore last year. WCD Minister Maneka Gandhi has taken up the issue of fund shortage with the Ministry of Finance several times in the past few months.
On top agenda for the Ministry of Water Resources was the growing problem of water shortage in 91 important reservoirs of the country.
“As on August 27, 2015, the water storage was 91.84 BCM which is 58 per cent of total storage capacity of these reservoirs. The present storage position during current year is less than the storage position of last year and is also less than the storage of average of last ten years,” said an official.
“Ganga cleaning and rejuvenation is also a priority for the Government. Several Ministries, including that of Shipping are working towards it,” said the official.
The allocation of Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation was also reduced from `6,009 earmarked last year to `4,232 crore this year.