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| J&K spent 4 percent funds for empowerment of girls | | Too much noise! | |
Syed Junaid Hashmi
Early Times Report
JAMMU, May 26: Jammu and Kashmir government utilised just 4.49 percent of the funds allocated for Rajiv Gandhi Scheme for empowerment of adolescent girls-SABLA.
And the state has achieved first rank in the country for having spent meagre funds available with it for all round development of adolescent girls of 11-18 years with a focus on all out-of school adolescent girls by making them 'self-reliant' by improving their health and nutrition status, promoting awareness about health, hygiene, nutrition, Adolescent Reproductive and Sexual Health, family and child care and facilitating access to learning about public services through various interventions such as guidance and counselling.
According to the official documents available with Early Times, the Social Welfare Ministry of previous NC-Congress coalition government whose Minister was Sakina Ittoo failed to utilise available funds for the reasons best known to it. Documents reveal that J&K had Rs. 65.46 crore available with it under this scheme but the state failed to utilise this amount and this unspent balance kept increasing with each passing month.
By the end of year 2014, government of India had released Rs. 292.12 crore to the state of Jammu and Kashmir under this again but the utilisation remained scenario was not only dismal but shocking. Since the scheme has both Nutrition and non Nutrition Component, the total funds available with the state government were to the tune of Rs. 357.58 crore. Out of these funds, J&K could spend just Rs. 16.05 crore in the last two financial years.
This is despite the fact that J&K reported 66537 beneficiaries under this scheme but did not explain the reasons for extremely meagre utilisation of the funds. Documents further indicate that nutrition aspect of the scheme has taken off to some extent but a lot more is required to be done in the non-nutrition aspect to derive maximum benefits out of this scheme. They also indicate that J&KI has not submitted information about their utilization status.
The under-utilisation of funds is also because of non-convergence of scheme with developmental activities/schemes of other Ministries/Departments such as Health, Education, Youth Affairs, Labour, PRIs, the documents reveal. They show that the outgoing social welfare minister failed to ensure an effective synergy and convergence with the Ministry of Health and Medical Education for health related inputs i.e. health check up and referral services, Nutrition and Health Education, Family Welfare and Adolescent Reproductive Sexual Health (ARSH) under the scheme Sabla.
For vocational training, state failed to converge this scheme with NSDP and other existing Schemes. For entry/re entry into formal schools and motivation to do the same, coordination with Department School Education and Literacy which was a must was never established. No efforts were made to ensure that synergy is established with schemes of Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports also for the life skills education of AGs.
State failed to set-up monitoring committees at all levels (National, State, District, block and village level) so that they could meet at specified intervals and take stock of the progress of the Scheme as also strengthen the coordination convergence between concerned departments. Overall, official documents have laid bare the story of failure of ex-Minister for Social Welfare Sakina Ittoo. This is despite the fact that she was considered one of the best ministers in the previous government. |
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