Graph on India Social Sector Expenditure
Social sector spending in India includes poverty reduction interventions, expenditures in the fields of health, education and nutrition and social assistance and social welfare. Most departments of government are in some way responsible for spending under this broad head. Despite the fact that social security programmes in India have a long history and are well established, social expenditure in India is nevertheless particularly vulnerable to budget cuts for a number of reasons. The sector is highly divisible and thus incremental and piecemeal reductions in real expenditure are possible. In addition, the political constituency that supports most social sector programmes is relatively weak and is dominated by technical expert patrons. Finally, the mass of evaluative researches which have historically been critical of state interventionism can be used not (as originally intended) to reform the sector, but to provide justifications to abolish major components entirely.
However, since 1991 social sector expenditure has not declined as much as had been anticipated. Despite its departmental pervasiveness it is an extremely critical sector. Even though social sector programmes are flawed with expenditure levels and by spatial patchiness and conflicting trends in expenditure and composition, social sector cuts have been widely resisted in India and some Indian states have increased their current debt in order to protect social expenditure.
Read more on the socio-economic profile of India at: http://india-reports.com/summary/socio.aspx
