Vision

To ensure the rights of each poor person to survive “with dignity” by eliminating the skewed pattern of fund/resource allocation through re-distributive measures.

Mission

1. To demystify the huge and tricky numbers presented in the budget books by the Rajasthan Government through, quality analysis;

2. To build capacity in the civil society organizations and people’s organizations, with an objective to strengthen their pressure group work and networking. As a result, we believe, greater public expenditure for meeting basic needs will be made – in other words, greater realization of basic rights of the poor (e.g. the right to food, the right to livelihood, the right to education, the right to health, the right to housing, the right to development etc.);

3. To sensitize the legislators regarding the limited financial provisions for the poor and the rural areas, and also to build their capacity so that their voices get stronger in the Assembly and in other forums. The increased knowledge, understanding and sensitivity will enable them to guide the bureaucrats – with proper suggestions including facts and figures — in the processes of policy formulation as well as policy implementation. And, of course, budget-aware legislators can increase budget allocations in favor of the poor and socially excluded sections of society.

4. To understand the tricky processes of financial decentralization and thereby share our understanding with the Panchayati Raj Institution (PRI) members and other local actors in order to build their capacity to understand and monitor the budget making process and financial allocations under different schemes. Strengthened, their voices can be more effective for greater decentralization and transparency in terms of resource distribution from the top to bottom;

5. To understand the gap between the measures taken by the State and Center to address the dire needs of the poor, and how far things have improved in reality at the grass-root level; and to communicate such understanding to a cross-section of society through different means

6. To draw the attention of the media to the issues pertaining to the limited distribution of resources for the poor, and to the other lacuna’s in the economic distributive system, and thereby, to point out the need for “re-distributive policies”. The Center will use the media to share concerns, and to disseminate the analysis work done.