Gender Budgeting in India: India's Gender Budget Up By Over 30...

Gender Budgeting in India: India's Gender Budget Up By Over 30% This Year

Feb. 5, 2023

Why in News?

India's Gender Budget, which aims to reduce the gender gap, was allocated ₹2.23 lakh crore in the Union Budget 2023-24, which is just 2.12% higher than the Revised Estimates (RE) of ₹2.18 lakh crore for 2022-23.
However, it was at least 30% higher compared to last year's Budget Estimates (BE) of 1.71 lakh crore.

What’s in Today’s Article?

What is Gender Budgeting?
What is the Timeline of Gender Budgeting in India?
What are the Issues with Gender Budgeting in India?
What needs to be Done to Promote Gender Budgeting?
News Summary with respect to the Recent Gender Budget Announcements

What is Gender Budgeting?

The Ministry of Women and Child Development (MoWCD) defines gender budgeting as a tool to achieve gender mainstreaming so as to ensure that the benefits of development reach women as much as men.
The government publishes a Gender Budget Statement (GBS) every year along with the Union Budget.
GBS is a reporting mechanism for ministries/departments to review their programmes from a gender perspective and present information on allocations for women.
As such, it is not a separate accounting exercise but an ongoing process of keeping a gender perspective in policy/programme formulation, its implementation and review.
So, it entails the dissection of the government budgets -
- To establish its gender differential impacts and
- To ensure that gender commitments are translated into budgetary commitments.

What is the Timeline of Gender Budgeting in India?

2001: Then Finance Minister of India, in his Budget speech, makes a special reference. National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP) analyses the Union Budget 2001-02 from a gender perspective for the first time.
In 2005-06, The Gender Budget was first introduced, when the Expenditure Division of the Ministry of Finance issued a note on gender budgeting as a part of the Budget Circular.
- Part A of the note reflects Women Specific Schemes, which have 100% allocation for women.
- Part B of the note reflects Pro-Women's Schemes, where at least 30% of the allocation is for women.
In 2007, the Department of Expenditure issued a charter outlining the composition of Gender Budgeting Cells (GBCs) and their functions.
In 2010, the Planning Commission clarified that in place of the Women Component Plan, the Ministry of Finance and MoWCD should adopt Gender Responsive Budgeting or Gender Budgeting only.
Gender budgeting in states: In 2021, the MoWCD stated that 27 states/UTs had adopted Gender Budgeting.

What are the Issues with Gender Budgeting in India?

Quantum of gender budgeting and fiscal marksmanship: India's gender Budget remains in the range of 4 - 6% of the total expenditure and less than 1% of its GDP. It also lacks fiscal marksmanship, which is the accuracy of budgetary forecasting.
Concentrated in 5 key ministries: Around 90% of gender budgeting is concentrated in five ministries. When it comes to livelihood, MGNREGA is the biggest scheme in gender budgeting.
- Areas like transportation, water collection and water security remain ignored.
Post-Covid-19 approach: The last Budget failed to address critical areas highlighted by pandemic in 2021-22 and 2022-23, despite the disproportionate impact of Covid-19 on women.

What needs to be Done to Promote Gender Budgeting?

Applying a gender lens to Budget: Nobody is saying that make exclusive schemes, but include a gender perspective to government schemes uniformly.
Track gender disaggregated data: To determine who is benefiting from government schemes.
Decentralisation: Empowering officials at district level and panchayat level who deal with ground realities on a day-to-day basis.

News Summary with respect to the Recent Gender Budget Announcements:

Overview:
- There was a 0.63% rise in the share of the Gender Budget in government's total expenditure.
- The estimated Gender Budget stood at 96% of the total expenditure this year, compared to 4.33% last year.
- The gender budget has been an average of 4.9% of the total expenditure as per budget estimates during the previous 15 years.
Decoding Part A and B of Gender Budget:
- There was a whopping 228% hike in Part A of the Gender Budget compared to last year, while Part B saw a 6% drop from 2022-23.
- Part A of the Gender Budget, which was allotted over ₹88,000 crore this year, is dominated by the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (both Urban and Rural housing).
- Part B - the bigger of the two components - received ₹1.35 lakh crore in the 2023 Budget. Part B comprises several schemes pertaining to rural development, health, education and women empowerment.
Allocations to key schemes:
- Safe City Project, an initiative under the Nirbhaya Fund scheme for ensuring safety of women and children, saw an eight-fold increase in allocation - from ₹165 crore in RE 2022-23 to ₹1,300 crore in BE 2023-24.
- SAMBAL, a sub-scheme comprising old schemes like One Stop Centre, Women Helpline and Beti Bachao Beti Padhao, saw no change in allocation in the 2023 Budget - ₹562 crore.
- Another sub-scheme SAMARTHYA, which includes women empowerment programmes like Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana and Swadhar Greh, was earmarked ₹2,496 crore this year, 33% more compared to RE 2022-23.
- SAMBAL and SAMARTHYA are part of the larger umbrella scheme 'Mission Shakti', an integrated women empowerment programme that came into effect in 2022.