GS Paper-2
Syllabus: Government policies and interventions aimed at development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.
Context:
Development, Monitoring and evaluation office (DMEO) (an attached office of Niti Aayog) has pitched in for the Gender Budgeting Act to the mainstream of gender-based budgeting across all ministries.
- According to the report, gender budgeting is not practised in most states and is also not captured for many schemes in different sectors.
Recommendations by DMEO
- Improve social acceptance of transgenders: Under report titled ‘Gender Mainstreaming in Governance’ also said there is a need to improve social acceptance of transgender persons in society.
- More allocation of funds: The report recommended that the Ministry of Women & Child Development (MWCD) should encourage state governments to increase their budgetary allocation towards women and child development, protection and welfare schemes
- Policy on women: There is a need to ‘finalise the National Policy for Women with revision in 2016 draft policy’.
- Provide gender-disaggregated data: absence of such data makes it difficult to measure the true impact of the schemes resulting in poor strategy design.
What is Gender Budgeting?
Gender budgeting means preparing budgets or analyzing them from a gender perspective. Also referred to as gender-sensitive budgeting, this practice does not entail dividing budgets for women.
Gender Budgeting is a powerful tool for achieving gender mainstreaming so as to ensure that benefits of development reach women as much as men.
Facts related to Gender budgeting in India:
- India has a gender budget component since 2005-06 wherein schemes having allocations at least 30% for women is highlighted.
- Beijing declaration and platform for action 1995: Recommended Gender Budgeting
- Influenced both expenditure and revenue policies: India’s gender budgeting efforts is unique because they have not only influenced expenditure but also revenue policies (like differential rates for men and women in property and Income tax rates)
- Gender Budgeting Cells (GBC): has been mandated in each ministries/Department
- India ranked poor 140 (out of 156) in latest Global gender gap report
- In the budget this year:
- India has shifted its focus from women’s development to women-led development.
- Over 1.7 lakh cr has been allocated for women-centric schemes under the gender budget 2022-2023, which is an increase of 5 per cent
Insta Links
Basics: Gender Responsive Budgeting
Practice Questions
Q. Discuss the concept of ‘Gender budgeting’ and analyse its significance in the Indian context. (250 words)
Source: The Print
