Post the announcement of Union Budget 2017, Accountability Initiative (AI) at CPR, which tracks government budgetary allocation and related expenditure for key social sector schemes annually, both through analysing government data and corroborating it with ground surveys run by their field staff, shares their full series of budget briefs (2017-18) on seven social sector schemes:

• Direct Benefit Transfer, Jan Dhan, Aadhaar and Mobile, GOI, 2017-18
• MGNREGS, GOI, 2017-18
• National Health Mission, GOI, 2017-18
• Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana, GOI, 2017-18
• Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, GOI, 2017-18 (Hindi Translation)
• Swachh Bharat Mission – Gramin, GOI, 2017-18
• Swachh Bharat Mission – Urban, GOI, 2017-18

In a series of articles below, Yamini Aiyar, Avani Kapur and Abhishri Aggarwal break down the bottlenecks in fund-flows, which negatively impact implementation on the ground despite monies having been allocated, as well as provide sectoral and scheme-specific budgetary (allocation, expenditure, government reported outputs & outcomes) analysis over 2017-18.

Social sector allocations 

• Yamini Aiyar writes in Livemint and in a Hindi article in Amar Ujala that the budget has maintained the status quo, as far as social sector schemes are concerned, and has been ‘remarkably silent’ on restructuring the ‘financing architecture for social policy post the 14th Finance Commission’.
• Avani Kapur reiterates this in another article in Deccan Herald, writing that despite riding high on expectations, Budget 2017 did not offer any major changes in majority of social sector schemes.

Complexity of fund-flows

• In Huffington Post, Yamini Aiyar explains why the money allocated by the union government fails to reach the ground, primarily due to the complex mechanism of fiscal transfer or fund-flow, which makes tracking and accountability very difficult. (Hindi translation)

The complexity of this mechanism of money-flow has been captured in the animated video (above).

• In a follow-up and related article, Abhishri Aggarwal analyses the lack of effective implementation of the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) scheme, as well as the need for a transparent, well-maintained monitoring system.

In addition, AI produced the following data visualisations:

• Jan Dhan, Aadhar, and Mobile (JAM),
• Allocations in key social sector ministries & programmes,
• Swachh Bharat Mission (Hindi)

AI also put together a series of 6 short learning videos, which break down how to analyse the budget, and can be accessed here. The animated video embedded above is also available in Hindi.