Restore budget for women and child developmednt: Maneka Gandhi

Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi on Sunday urged Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to restore part of the budgetary allocations slashed in the union budget for certain schemes.

At an interaction with women journalists at the Indian Women's Press Corps here, the minister, however, said there has been no cut in budgetary allocations for her ministry as such.

"It is not a cut in the budget but just a reappropriation. A large part has gone to the states as per the recommendations of the finance commission," she said replying to a question.

"It is not that the money has disappeared," she said.

However, the minister said in areas where "we cannot do without the money, I have asked the finance minister to restore part of it".

The allocation for the ministry has been slashed by 44 percent in the budget for 2015-16 presented by Jaitley on February 28.

While the allocation for the ministry in 2014-15 was Rs.18,588 crore, it was reduced to Rs.10,382 crore for the current financial year.

Maneka Gandhi said that among the several programmes which would be affected by the budget cut was the launching of a national nutrition mission.

The mission would have entailed training Anganwadi workers in nutrition facts of children and providing tablets for them.