A postcard campaign has been launched to press the Union Government to give strong consideration to children in the 2011-12 annual budget.
The campaign, launched by Christian relief and development organisation World Vision, is urging Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee to allocate over 4% of the annual budget to improve the lives of children living in vulnerable conditions.
“We hope that at least this year children who constitute about 40% of the total population will be allocated more than 4% of the budget,” World Vision said in a note.
Over 33,000 children have written to the financemMinister asking for a fair share in the annual budget which will be released on Monday, February 28.
World Vision is encouraging people to join the campaign by sending an email to the finance minister at pkm@sansad.nic.in, so “children living in poverty could have adequate food, access to education and quality health care”.
India is home to the world’s largest child population. Less than half of India’s children go to school and more than 50% are malnourished.
Child Rights and You (CRY), a non-profit organization that aims to restore children’s rights in India is asking for 10 percent of India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to be invested in children’s education and health.
“The child protection budget for a country of more than 440 million children is a mere 0.34 percent of the total union budget 2010-11, which is perhaps why India has become a child trafficking hotspot,” CRY CEO Puja Marwaha said.
Marwaha cautioned that ignoring childhood poverty and education will affect the nation’s economic standing.
According to UNICEF, at least 17 million children in India are child labourers and about 19% are employed as domestic help. In addition to that, it is estimated that over 30,000 children are in the sex trade.
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