Gender Budgeting is a practice followed globally and acknowledges fiscal expenditure with a gender perspective. It aims to allocate and divert funds for gender-specific outcomes to address prevalent gender inequality that hinders the growth and development of a nation.
Gender Budgeting aims at securing equity in the distribution of resources between women and men. Bringing gender budgeting governments to promote equality through fiscal policies by analyzing budget’s differential impacts on gender. Gender Budgeting along with supportive policy measures and laws could help governments track effective allocation of funds in strengthening gender equality and empowering women. Gender Budgeting is a powerful tool to achieve gender mainstreaming to ensure that the benefits of development are reaching as much to men as women.
Gender Budgeting significance for India
India was ranked 112th among 153 countries on the Global Gender Gap Index 2020. Gender Budget in India was released as part of Union Budget 2005-06, for the first time. Over the last sixteen years, India’s Gender Budget has increased six-folds in absolute terms from Rs. 24, 241 crores in 2005-06 to Rs 1,43,462 in 2020-21, but for the last 13 years, the allocation as a proportion to the total budget have stayed constant ranging 4.3-5.9 per cent. And the gender budget allocation has been less than the total budget in 5 of the last 6 years.
Trend of gender budget allocation
Gender Budget has two parts:
Part A: It includes schemes with 100% allocation for women – maternity benefit scheme, widow pension scheme, girl’s hostel scheme to name a few.
Part B: it involves the allocation of 30 per cent of funds for women such as the mid-day meals programme, biogas programme and rural livelihoods mission.
It has been observed that the gender budget has been dominated i.e. 2/3rd of gender budget by allocation under Part B since its inception.
In 2020-21, Part A constituted 20 per cent, the second-lowest since 14 per cent of the Gender Budget in 2015-16. Since the gender budget amounts are based on the proportions decided by the respective ministries and departments under them. Therefore, a clear methodology becomes crucial. Grassroots-based planning should be at the core to address crucial gender gaps.
Although there are shortcomings in the allocation and implementation of the gender budget, it has helped to mainstream the idea of gender perception within the fiscal discourse. It has succeeded in drawing attention to gender issues. Studies have suggested gender budgeting can help reduce gaps in reducing social violence and educational attainment in society. It has contributed to have a future-centric programme design. The gender budget has pioneered its integration both within the state and central government policy frameworks.
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