Children's Day 2026 Special: MP's Child Budget Share Drops From 20.5% To 17% In Four Years

Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): The share of allocation for children in the state government's total budget has reduced from 20.5% to 17% in the last four years. This is when children form 40% of Madhya Pradesh's total population and the state lags behind most others in the indicators of child health and welfare.

In 2022-23, Madhya Pradesh became the first state in the country to introduce a separate child budget. In that year, the state's total budget was Rs 2.79 lakh crore.

Of this, the allocation for the child budget was Rs 57,803 crore, which was 20.5% of the total. In 2026-27, the total allocation was Rs 4.38 lakh crore. Of this, the child budget accounted for Rs 75,877 crore (17%).

The child budget covers two categories of schemes: child-specific schemes and child-responsive schemes. The former includes schemes meant only for children and under it 100% of the allocation is used for their welfare.

The latter covers schemes, which are not specifically targeted at children but at least 30% of their budget allocations are spent on children.

According to the latest National Family Health Survey (NFHS) and Sample Registration System (SRS) data, Madhya Pradesh has the highest Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) among all states at 40 deaths per 1,000 live births.

The state's Child Mortality Rate (CMR) is also the highest in the country at 46-49 deaths per 1,000 live births. Nearly 39.7% of children under five in the state are underweight, which is the second highest after Jharkhand.

Over 72.7% of children aged 6-59 months in Madhya Pradesh are anaemic. Also, the state has witnessed an almost 46% jump in child marriages in 2025 in comparison to 2020.

The women and child development department, which is the nodal agency for the preparation of child budget faces apathy in its bid to orient their functioning, rules and policies towards child welfare. Only 19 state government departments participated in the child budgeting process for 2026-27, up from 17 in 2022-23.

No representatives from home, revenue, transport, environment, AYUSH and village and cottage industries attended a workshop organised by WCD on the child budget for the next fiscal year and neither did they report how they propose to make their rules and regulations child-friendly.

When asked about the implications of the declining child budget share, secretary of the women and child development department GV Rashmi asked this reporter to contact the department's commissioner.

Commissioner Sandeep GR did not respond to repeated phone calls or messages.

No meeting of child budget panel in 3 yrs

A state-level committee on child budgeting, comprising representatives from different departments, UNICEF, child welfare experts and others, did not hold a single meeting in the last three years.

The process of reconstitution has been hanging in the balance for months.