Bihar: Child Development-I

Child Development

Abstract:

• Bihar is the third most populous state in India and is home to 4.98 crore children, almost half (48 percent) of the state’s population, 10.4 crore (2011 Census). Bihar with 11 percent of India’s population ranks second in child population (0-18 years).
• Nearly 90 percent of the children live in villages. Safeguarding their rights is the duty of any state. This demands an effective integration of survival, development, protection and participation policies which form the core of overall well being of a child.
• To meet their needs, the process of child budgeting was initiated in Bihar in 2013-14.
  • Between 2013-14 and 2018-19, the expenditure on children grew annually at the rate of 23.6 percent.
  • During the same period, the Per Capita Expenditure on children increased more than three times, from Rs. 1225 to Rs. 3910.
• The share of expenditure on child development in the total slate budget lies at around 11.3 percent, with some year-to-year variation. Likewise, the percentage share of expenditure on children in GSDP is around 3 percent.
• Various schemes of the Central and State Governments, like ICDS, National Nutrition Mission, Scheme for Adolescent Girls, etc. are making a considerable impact on the growth and welfare of children in Bihar.
• The State Government’s concern towards children is also clearly visible from its initiatives to meet the challenges of Covid-19, which included food security and digital mode of education.

Introduction:

• Children are the future of any country and their development deserves utmost attention of the state. Bihar is a young state, where children constitute about 48 percent of the state’s population (Census 2011).
• Recognised by policy-makers as an ultimate national asset, child development demands high public investment for their comprehensive development. What is done for them today will determine the pace, progress, environment and prospects of the state in future.
• The status of children is an extremely sensitive indicator of rights-based development. The National Policy for Children, 2013 recognises that a multisectoral and multidimensional approach is necessary to secure the rights of every child of India in the age-group of 0-18 years.
  • The Policy has identified four key priority areas — survival, health and nutrition, educational development, protection and participation — for focused attention.
  • As children’s needs are divergent and interconnected, they require collective action and purposeful convergence of different sectors and levels of governance.
• Though children are minimally susceptible to Covid-19 virus, they are hit the hardest by the psychosocial impact of this pandemic. The closure of schools and lack of outdoor activity potentially promoted monotony, distress and impatience among children.
  • Incidences of domestic violence and child abuse were also on the rise. The children from marginalized communities arc particularly susceptible to the infection and may suffer from extended ill-consequences of this pandemic, such as child labour, child trafficking, child marriage, sexual exploitation, etc.
• In this scenario, providing the basic amenities (like social security and medical care) and minimising educational inequities among the children of the different strata of the society are the foremost priorities of the State Government.

Demographic Status

• The child population, covering the age group of 0-18 years, is a delicate segment of the total population. India is the second most populous country in the world, where 39 percent of its population lie in the age bracket of 0-18 years, as per Census 2011.
  • Out of total 47.21 crore children in the age-group of 0-18 years, 34.36 crore (72.8 percent) live in rural areas and 12.85 crore (27.2 percent) in urban areas.
• As for Bihar, 48 percent of the population lie in the age group of 0-18 years. The state accounts for about 11 percent of India’s total child population. The state is home to 4.98 crore children, of which 4.47 crore (89.9 percent) live in rural areas and 0.50 crore (10.1 percent) reside in urban areas.
• As regards the gender-wise composition of the child population, it is nearly the same as that of the total population of the state.
  • The females account for 47 percent of the total child population, which is slightly lower than the overall proportion of females in the state which stands at 48 percent.
• The distribution of the child population (0-18 years) across different age-groups in Bihar are — 0-6 years (38.4 percent), 0-14 years (83.8 percent) and 7-14 years (45.4 percent). Similarly, for India, this distribution is — 0-6 years (34.9 percent), 0-14 years (78.9 percent) and 7-14 years (44.0 percent).
  • Understanding of stages of child development in different age groups is very important for the policy designers for child development, as every stage has a different need.

Child sex Ratio (CSR)

• The gender composition of the population is one of the basic demographic characteristics, Changes in gender composition largely reflect the underlying social, economic and cultural patterns of the society in different ways.
• Sex ratio is defined as the number of females per 1000 males in the population and is an important social indicator to measure the extent of prevailing equity between males and females in a society, It may be noted that the sex ratio is expected to be almost at parity in nature, While considering CSR in the age-group 0-18 years, in India as well as in different states, it is seen that sex ratio is skewed in favour of males.
• Among the 8 Empowered Action Group (EAG) states CSR of Chhattisgarh is the highest (969), whereas Rajasthan (887) reported the lowest CSR. Among these 8 states, Bihar, with a CSR 897, lies on the fifth position.
• For the state as a whole, the CSR in the age group of 0-6 years declined from 942 females per 1000 males in 2001 to 935 females in 2011. The CSR among the Scheduled Castes (962) and Scheduled Tribes (969) in 2011 are higher than the state average (935).
• Among the districts, Kisbanganj (971), Katihar (961) and Gaya (960) have the highest child sex ratio in the age group of 0-6 years. At the other end, Vaishali (904), Patna (909) and Muzaffårpur (915) are seen to have the lowest child sex ratio.
• It is noteworthy that the child sex ratio in the age group of 0-18 years has increased from 883 females pet 1000 males in 2001 to 897 females per 1000 males in 2011.
  • Among the districts, Gopalganj (959), Kishanganj (958) and Siwan (946) have the highest child sex ratio for 0-18 years as per 2011 census.
  • At the other end, Munger and Khagaria (861) and Vaishali (865) are districts With the lowest sex ratios for 0-18 years as per 2011 census.
• At all-India level, the sex ratio in the age group 0-6 years is 918 and even lower at 908 in the age group of 0-18 years as per 2011 census. For SC and ST, the child sex ratios in the age- group 0-18 years were 899 and 929 females per 1000 males respectively.

Adolescent Population in Bihar

• Adolescence is the period in life when an individual is no longer a child, but not yet an adult. It is a period in which an individual undergoes enormous physical and psychological changes.
• World Health Organisation (WHO) defines adolescents as individuals in the 10-19 years age-group. It is a phase of transition from total socio-economic and emotional dependence to relative independence.
• As per Census 2011, adolescent population (10-19 years) in Bihar is 2.34 crore, constituting 22.5 percent of the total population. Hence, every fifth person in Bihar is an adolescent.
  • In terms of absolute numbers of adolescents, Tirhut division registered the highest with 46.9 lakh, followed by Patna with 39.9 lakh. Bhagalpur division was at the bottom with 11.2 lakh adolescent population.
• A common demographic characteristic in terms of sex composition is that, in most parts of the world, fewer girls are born than boys; yet girls typically survive longer than boys, leading to a sex ratio of more than 1000.
  • However, this demographic characteristic eludes India as well as Bihar, where males outnumber females.
• The low sex ratio is indicative of women’s lower status, a consequence of greater deprivation and gender discrimination.

Allocation for Children

• The child budgeting is not simply an accounting exercise. The main objective of the budgeting is to ensure adequate expenditure for child development, so as to address their needs and vulnerabilities in a holistic way.
• A complete understanding of public expenditure on children can emerge only when one covers its various components. It is an attempt to desegregate those allocations which are made to specifically benefit children. This enables one to assess how far the policy commitments of the State Government are translated into financial commitments.
• The child budget work began in India in 2000, with the Centre for Child Rights doing an analysis of the decadal Union Budget from a child’s perspective. But since India is a large country, such child budget exercises would remain incomplete without undertaking a child budget analysis at the state level.
• Following the Report of the Centre for Child Rights, the Central Government undertook child budget analysis for the first time in 2003.
  • Thereafter, in 2008-09, Statement 22 was introduced in the Union Budget as Budget Provisions for Schemes for the Welfare of Children. Since then, this statement has been carried over in the subsequent Union Budgets. In 2017-18, this statement was renamed as Statement 12.
  • Along with Union Government, three states preparing a separate child budget are — Assam, Kerala and Bihar. Karnataka and Maharashtra have started the exercise in 2020.
• In Bihar, the process of child budgeting started in 2013-14. The child allocations mainly relate to education and health schemes, special schemes for girls and child security.
  • Between 2013-14 and 2018-19, the overall expenditure for children increased from Rs. 6329.66 crore in 2013-14 to Rs. 19474.72 crore in 2018-19, registering an annual growth of 23.6 percent.
  • In the same period, the per capita expenditure increased nearly thrice, from Rs. 1225 to Rs. 3910.
  • It is praiseworthy that, over the years, there has been an increase in the share of children in the state budget.
  • On an average, the share of expenditure on child development in the total state budget was around 11.3 percent in these six years. Similarly, on an average the share of expenditure as percentage of GSDP was around 3 4 percent.

Survival, Health and Nutrition Status

• Child mortality is a sensitive indicator of child development. Investing in the health of children is not only an imperative human right, it is also a sound economic decision and one of the surest ways for a state to set its course towards a better future.
  • With this viewpoint, the Indian Constitution, via Article 39 (f), directs the state to ensure that children are given opportunities and facilities to develop in a healthy manner with freedom and dignity. Along with this, the Constitution also tries to assure that the child and youth are protected against exploitation.
• Child health is basic for enhancing future capabilities of a growing nation and is profoundly related with access to nutritious food. Malnutrition is the outcome of hunger and illness, which results from numerous macro-nutrient and micro-nutrient deficiencies.
  • There are three indicators of hunger-related malnutrition among children under 5 years of age —
    • (i) Stunting (height-for-age),
    • (ii) Wasting (weight-for-height) and
    • (iii) Underweight (weight-for-age).
• Stunting (height-for-age):
  • Stunting is the impaired growth that children experience from poor nutrition, repeated infection, and inadequate psycho-social environment.
  • A child is defined as stunted if his/her height-for-age is more than two standard deviations below the median for the reference population.
  • Stunting has lifelong consequences on human capital, poverty and equity.
  • The data from National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) (2019-20) indicates that Bihar has shown improvement with respect to stunting levels, decreasing from 48.3 percent in 2015-16 to 42.9 percent in 2019-20. However, the state still shows high levels of stunting (42.9 percent) after a drop of 5.4 percentage points.
  • A comparison data between 2005-06 and 2019-20 shows a decrease of 12.7 percentage points, from 56.0 percent in 2005-06 to 42.9 percent in 2019-20.
  • The credit for all these achievements could be given to the pragmatic steps taken by the State Government in the health sector.
  • Among the districts of Bihar, as per NFHS-5, the prevalence of stunting is the highest in Sitamarhi (54.2 percent) and Sheikhpura (53.6 percent), and the lowest in Gopalganj (34.2 percent) and Sheohar (34.4 percent).
• Wasting (weight-for-height):
  • Wasting is a strong indicator of morbidity among children under 5 years. It is usually the result of acute food shortage or disease.
  • The weight-for-height index measures the adequacy of body mass in relation to body height and describes the current nutritional status.
  • As per NFHS-5 (2019-20), 22.9 percent of children under 5 years of age in the state are wasted, which indicates acute under-nutrition.
    • It is unfortunate to note that Bihar has shown a rise of 2.1 percentage points in wasting, from 20.8 percent in 2015-16 to 22.9 percent in 2019-20.
    • However, on comparing the prevalence of wasting with data from NFHS-3 (2005-06), a decrease of 4.2 percentage points was noticed between 2005-06 (27.1 percent) and 2019-20 (22.9 percent).
  • Among the districts, Arwal (36.8 percent) and Jehanabad (36.6 percent) are poor performers. On the other hand, West Champaran (13.2 percent) and Sitamarhi (16.2 percent) with the lowest level of wasting are better performers.
• Underweight (weight-for-age):
  • The weight-for-age is a composite index of height-for-age and weight-for-height. It takes into account both acute and chronic under-nutrition.
  • As per NFHS-5 data, the children under 5 years who are underweight has reduced from 43.9 percent in 2015-16 to 41.0 percent in 2019-20, a decline of 2.9 percentage points.
  • Further, on comparing with NFHS-3 (2005-06), this decline is seen to be of 14.9 percentage points, which is really laudable.
  • Among the 38 districts, Arwal was the worst performer with 52.9 percent of underweight children, followed by Jehanabad (51.7 percent). At the other end, West Champaran (30.3 percent) and Gopalganj (29.2 percent) had the lowest ratio of underweight children. ©crackingcivilservices.com