Child Development
Abstract:
- Childhood lays the foundation for adulthood. According to 2011 census, 5.18 crore children in Bihar account for 42 percent of its total population.
- Also, with 12 percent child population (0-18 years), Bihar ranks second in India, as projected in 2021.
- The agenda of child development is based on four pillars —
- Health and Nutrition,
- Education and Development,
- Child Protection, and
- Child Participation.
- Policies and programmes framed for children must ensure that no child is left behind. Moreover, almost 90 percent of the children in Bihar live in villages.
- To safeguard their health, nutrition, education and protection needs. the process of child budgeting was started in Bihar in 2013-14.
- During 2013-14 to 2019-20, the overall expenditure on children increased at an annual rate of 22.7 percent. In the same period, the Per Capita Expenditure increased 3.4 times, from Rs. 1559 in 2013-14 to Rs. 5376 in 2019-20.
- Additionally, on an average, during these seven years the share of expenditure on child development in the total state budget has been around 14.2 percent.
- Several schemes of the Central and Stale Governments, like ICDS, Scheme for Adolescent Girls, Scheme for Early Childhood Cure and Education, etc. are making a significant impact on the life of children in Bihar.
- The digital and food security initiatives of the State Government during the Covid-19 pandemic clearly shows the Government’s concern for children in Bihar.
Introduction:
- Childhood is the most valuable part of human life. It is the child’s upbringing that determines his/her achievements later. Children are generally vulnerable to various circumstances, owing to their inability to comprehend the world outside, inadequate care or lack or guidance.
- To meet the challenges of life, children need care, both mental and physical, which can be ensured only by adhering to the basic and universal child rights provisions.
- In the recent decades, there has been a growing universal concern for the rights of children as a large number of them are living in great distress.
- The concern for child development for an improved, secured and healthier life has, therefore, gained momentum in recent years. Both in Bihar and India, there is an unfinished agenda for child development.
- The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) defines the fundamental human rights of children along four dimensions that together cover their civil, political, social, economic and cultural rights. These dimensions are right to — survival, development, protection, and participation.
- Towards ensuring their rights, children deserve the best investment for all child-centric development programmes.
- The adoption of the National Policy for Children (NPC) in 1974 was the first such major comprehensive initiative taken by the Central Government.
- Thereafter, many reforms were adopted to promote child development. One Of those was to prepare separate child budgets. In Bihar, this practice Of child budgeting started in 2013-14.
- In 2021-22, a sum of Rs. 38863.99 crore has been earmarked for child budget, which is around 17.8 percent of the total state budget.
- According to the National policy for Children 2013, a Child is a person of 0-18 years of age.
- For this stage of life, the Policy underlines the need for a long-term, sustainable, multi-spectral, and inclusive approach. This policy is now being followed in Bihar.
Demographic Status:
- It is important to understand the demographic profile of a population group, before development programmes are designed for it. Ensuring healthy growth and secure environment for the development of a child ought to be a prime concern of all societies. The early years of a child’s life are very important for his or her health and development. The population in the age group 0-18 years is a vulnerable segment.
- As per projections, child population in India accounts for about 33 percent of the total population in 2021.
- In Bihar, this share of child population (0-18 years) is even higher at 42 percent.
- The state accounts for 12 percent of India’s total child population.
- According to projected figures, in Bihar, there are 5.18 crore children, of which 4.66 crore (89.9 percent) reside in rural areas and 0.53 crore (10.1 percent) live in urban areas.
- Gender-wise, there are 2.45 crore female children in Bihar and 2.73 crore are male.
Sex Ratio at Birth:
- The steady decline in sex ratio at birth needs paramount attention, in both India and Bihar.
- Normally, female infants and female children have an advantage in survival over boys of the same age, with lesser vulnerability to perinatal conditions. But, in many underdeveloped countries, female children do not have this advantage.
- The strong preference for male children results in discrimination against girls, right from birth. Looking at the sex ratio figures, it is seen that Bihar has managed to improve the overall sex ratio between 2012-14 and 2013-15, but thereafter, there is steady decline till 2016-18.
- For India, the sex ratio at birth has worsened during 2012-14 to 2015-17, but has improved thereafter.
- In 2016-18, the sex ratio at birth was nearly the same in Bihar (899) and India (900).
Adolescent Population and Sex Ratio:
- Adolescents comprise a significant proportion of India’s population. Despite improvements in various dimensions, this demographic segment continues to face serious socio-economic challenges. Individuals in the age-group of 10-19 years are adolescents, according to World Health Organisation (WHO).
- It is a stage of changeover from total socio-economic and emotional dependence to relative independence.
- Based on projections, it is seen that the adolescent population (10-19 years) in Bihar in 2021 is 2.44 crore, of which rural adolescent is 2.16 crore and urban only 0.28 crore.
- The adolescents constitute 19.8 percent of the total population in Bihar. In other words, every fifth person in Bihar is an adolescent.
- In Bihar, 89 percent of adolescents reside in rural areas and 1 1 percent in urban areas.
- In absolute number, Tirhut division with 48.83 lakh population records the highest number of adolescent population, whereas Bhagalpur was the division with the least adolescent population (1 1.64 lakh).
- Adolescent Sex Ratio (ASR) in Bihar ranged between 814 and 930 per 1000 males in 9 divisions. Out of nine, four divisions, namely Patna (864), Purnea (871), Magadh (911) and Saran (930) recorded ASR above the state average of 854.
Allocation for Children:
- The investment on children is the best way to develop human resources. With this perception, the child budgeting exercise began in India in 2000, with the Centre for Child Rights doing a decadal analysis of Union Budget from the perspective of child development.
- The process of child budgeting started in Bihar in 2013-14. The child budget includes all the financial details of the child welfare schemes.
- These allocations mainly focus on four pillars of child development – health, education, protection and participation.
- There has been a steady increase in child expenditure in Bihar, during the last seven years. From 2013-14 to 2019-20, the overall expenditure on children increased at an annual late of 22.7 percent. During the same period, the per capita expenditure increased 3.4 times from Rs. 1559 in 2013-14 to Rs. 5376 in 2019-20.
- On an average, during these seven years, the share of expenditure on child development in the total state budget is around 14.2 percent. Likewise, the share of expenditure as percentage of GSDP is around 4 percent, on an average.
Survival, Health and Nutrition Status:
- Good nutrition is the base of child survival and development. Healthy and well-nourished children can grow, learn, play and participate in their community activities in a better way. Child health is basic for enhancing the future capabilities of a nation.
- Thus, it is a great social concern, for which the state has to play a crucial role. To stop child mortality in developing countries, an attempt is generally made to provide selective primary health care.
- This health care mainly focuses on the prevention and control of specific infectious diseases, and less effort is directed to improve children’s underlying nutritional status.
- But there is a strong relationship between malnutrition and mortality; and, as such, child health should be improved through nutritional interventions.
- Along with other indicators, three main parameters to assess the health and nutrition of a child are children under 5 years of age who are stunted (height-for-age), wasted (weight-for-height) and underweight (weight-for-age).
- Stunting, Wasting and Underweight:
-
- Stunting, wasting and underweight are the three indicators of malnutrition.
- Stunting means children under 5 years of age who are too short for their age, and signifies chronic under-nutrition.
- Wasting is a weight-for-height index, which measures the adequacy of body mass in relation to body height and reflects current nutritional status.
- Wasting may result due to inadequate food intake or a recent episode of illness causing weight loss.
- Underweight is the weight-for-age which is a composite index of height-for-age and weight-for-height. It takes into account both acute and chronic under-nutrition.
- On comparing National Family Health Survey 4 and 5 (NFHS 4 and 5), it is seen that:
- The stunting of children under 5 years in Bihar has come down from 48.3 percent to 42.9 percent, registering a decline of 5.4 percentage points.
- Also, in case of underweight children, the figures have come down from 43.9 percent to 41.0 percent, indicating a decrease of 2.9 percentage points.
- But for children facing the problem of wasting, there is a slight increase in proportion.
- It should be noted here that improvements in Bihar With respect to stunting and underweight is found in both rural and urban areas. Similarly, worsening of condition with respect to wasting is again observed in both rural and urban areas, but more so in rural areas.
- In case of India, there have been improvements on all three indicators. As regards the difference between Bihar and India, the nutritional status is expectedly better in India, particularly in terms of percentage of underweight children.
- However, with a number of pragmatic steps taken by the State Government to meet the nutritional issues, it is expected that, in the coming years, this indicator will also show adequate progress.
- Among the districts of Bihar, the prevalence of stunting is the highest in Sitamarhi (54.2 percent) and Sheikhpura (53.6 percent), and the lowest in (34.4 percent) and Gopalganj (34.2 percent).
- The lowest level of wasting was recorded in West Champaran (13.2 percent) and Sitamarhi (16.2 percent), whereas (36.8 percent) and Jehanabad (36.6 percent) were poor performers.
- Among 38 districts of the state, Arwal was the worst performer with 52.9 percent of underweight children, followed by Jehanabad (51.7 percent). On the other end, West Champaran (30.3 percent) and Gopalganj (29.2 percent) had the lowest ratio Of underweight children.
