Gender Budgeting

In News

• Recent Budget 2023-24 sees marginal rise in allocation for WCD Ministry for women

Key Takeaways:

• The allocation under the Gender Budget rose from ?1,71,006.47 crore in 2022-23 to ?2,23,219.75 crore in 2023-24 which is an increase by 23% compared to 2022-23.
•  The gender component accounted for 4.9% of the entire Budget, compared to 4.23% in 2022-23.
• The allocation for the Union Ministry for Women and Child Development saw a small increase of 1%.
• Around 90% of gender budgeting is concentrated in five ministries: Rural Development, Women and Child Development, Agriculture, Health and Family Welfare, and Education.
• Key areas in need of attention like transportation, water collection and security remain ignored.
• The allocation for Mission Shakti, which includes key schemes for women’s protection, saw a decrease of 1.2%.
• Part A of the Gender Budget, which counts allocation for schemes exclusively for women, saw a 70% increase from last year.
• The majority of this increase went to the Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana rural housing scheme whose inclusion in the Gender Budget is questioned, since it does not benefit women exclusively.

• Union Budget has also announced a new small savings scheme for women called the Mahila Samman Savings Certificate which will allow a deposit of up to ?2 lakh for two years at a fixed interest rate of 7.5%.
• Previously, the Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD) released a Handbook on Gender Budgeting in 2015, which provides exhaustive guidance for operationalising GRB in practice.

Gender Budgeting

• Gender budgeting is defined by the Ministry of Women and Child Development (MoWCD) as a tool to achieve gender mainstreaming and ensure benefits of development reach women as much as men.
• The government publishes a Gender Budget Statement (GBS) every year along with the Union Budget to review programmes from a gender perspective and present information on allocations for women.
• It is analysis of the budget through a gender lens rather than creating a separate budget for women.
• The goal is to examine the gender-specific impact of the budget and align it with gender commitments.
• Examples of programs that benefit women more than men include: Nal se Jal (piped water supply), Ujjwala Yojana (cooking fuel), and Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (toilet construction).

Source: LM