India’s budgetary allocations for achieving Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are inadequate, says a new study.

“In its last two budgets, the union government had taken an expansionary fiscal stance to deal with the challenges emerging from the global financial crisis during 2008-09 and 2009-10. However the 2010-11 budget underscores its intent to revert to the path of fiscal conservatism,” the Centre for Budget and Government Accountability (CBGA) said in the report.

It also criticised the government’s performance regarding goal like reducing poverty, child mortality and maternal health, where India performs badly. According to the report, “Many of the existing schemes addressing these development deficits are constrained by poor design, low unit costs, weak institutions and archaic budgetary processes; as a result, even the prevailing quantum of budget outlays are not leading to any visible improvement in the development outcomes.”

The report also maintains thaty "many of the problems relating to the financing of government interventions for MDGs stem from the fact that India has had very low magnitudes of public expenditure on development sectors until now."

The report notes that while the country has given emphasis on reducing poverty and hunger (Goal 1 of the MDGs) through different schemes, but similar interventions are missing for the other seven MDGs.

The report recommended that India should increase its budgetary allocations on MDGs with greater accountability.

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Wada Na Todo Abhiyan (WNTA) report on MDGs

The WNTA report on MDGs prepared in consultation with various civil society groups across India presented disappointing figures on India’s performance.

“Despite the ‘limited’ objective of the MDGs, even these ‘limited’ benchmarks have not been addressed by the successive governments as is evident from the recent developments of special economic zones (SEZs), mining and other initiatives rooted in neo-liberal ideologies,” says the report which is in response to India’s country report – 2009 released this year in June by the government.

Various contributors have written in this report on India’s status on the MDGs.

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