Budget Analysis Rajasthan Center


The Links : People to Policy and Policy to People

Main Objective of BARC

The main objective

It was an objective of this Centre that the Centre would put pressure for making the Budget, which is a link between policy and reality, transparent so that the people’s organisations can raise the necessary issues in favour of the poor people and enhance the Poor’s share in the budget. The Centre has developed a huge budget-related data bank and has been distributing budget information to the NGOs and activist groups to help them for the sake of bringing transparency in the democratic process. Till now, the Rajasthan Government has been preparing the state-level budget which has hardly been able to show the district-wise allocations of resources. Recently, the government has planned to strengthen the District Planning Committees. But, unless the necessary finances are allocated district-wise through budgetary provisions, district-level planning will hardly be able to play any significant role. Another important point is that, in almost all social and economic services, actual expenditures have been found to be lesser than the budget estimates. In other words, in the most cases the government machinery has been proved to be inefficient to spend the allocated money and consequently to produce satisfactory outcome. Therefore, in order to apply corrective measures in the system, strong voice needs to be raised from the NGOs as well as the different institutions.

How BARC is moving ahead towards it objective

Since not many NGOs in Rajasthan have an understanding of budget analysis and its importance in monitoring the democratic processes of governance, the Centre has been playing a crucial role in this case. NGOs’ Requests to the Centre for conducting budget orientation programmes at different districts are on the sharp increase. Many NGOs and activist groups have been keeping close and frequent contact with the Centre for various information. It proves that the Centre’s work has been successful to initiate a new vibration in the movements led by the NGOs and activist groups. Legislators are also showing their deep interests in the Centre’s works and they are using the Centre’s data in the debates during the Assembly sessions. Links between BARC and the MLAs have been making a path of lobbying for the Poor. In the training-cum-experiment programme with the elected Panchayati Raj Institute members, it was felt that the Centre was going on the right track since the Centre’s works, exercises and trainings could be of great help for the grassroots-level government bodies that are directly connected with the problems and developments of the local people. The elected Panchayati Raj Institute members have expressed their interests for further meetings on the budget.