According to the ministry of women and child development website, “Gender Budgeting is a powerful tool for achieving gender mainstreaming so as to ensure that benefits of development reach women as much as men”. It goes beyond a mere accounting exercise to be an ongoing process of ensuring that the policies, programmes are not just formulated but are benchmarked, implemented, and reviewed to adhere to robust gender norms. This is done with a view to guarantee equitable distribution of budgetary allocations to achieve gender mainstreaming and set the stage for gender differential impacts. India had formally adopted this practice of a dedicated budgetary allocation way back in 20005-6 Since then all the incumbent governments have continued this practice.
So how does this year’s union budget stand up for the nearly 50% of the Indian population? Despite several strides made by the nation in various areas of development, inequities between men and women persist on many social indicators like health, education, economic opportunities, amongst others. In fact, the last two years have not just exposed these gaps but in many cases even widened them greatly. For instance, government statistics reveal that while the level of unemployment in men has gone back to the pre-pandemic mark, women are nowhere close to it and continue to be obviated from employment opportunities. Further, disparities in access to healthcare, education, digital environment, and other facilities are gaining more distance. Do the allocations reflect an effort to stem this difference and ensure that both men and women are equal participants and beneficiaries?
While the budgetary assigning for healthcare especially mental health, digitalisation, and infrastructure strengthening may appear to bode well for bridging the gender gap, the limited number of participating ministries, as also the slight slump in the percentage of the gender budget to the total budget still reflects an apathetic attitude. The gender budget typically has two parts: Part A, which highlights the women-specific schemes, with 100% allocation for women, and Part B, which includes schemes where at least 30% of the allocation is for women. Two schemes of the rural development ministry – ‘Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana' and Indira Gandhi National Widow Pension Scheme – comprise 82% of Part A. The balance is distributed amongst Mission Shakti comprising Sambal with One Stop Centre, Mahila Police Volunteer, Women's Helpline, ‘Swadhar', ‘Ujjawala', Widow homes, and Samarthya which includes flagship schemes like ‘Beti Bachao Beti Padhao' and ‘Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana’. Sambal has seen a reduced budget while Samarthya receives more funds over the last year.
Mr. Ravi Duggal, Independent Social, Public Health Researcher, and Activist speaking at a panel discussion on the budget hosted by the IMPRI Gender Impact Study Center, Impact and Policy Research Institute, New Delhi, noted that suggest that the budget appears to benefit the private sector greatly and is capital-oriented in nature. There has been a reduction in several welfare schemes such as MNREGA, food subsidies, rural livelihood, etc, and the funds, he highlighted, have been relocated to help the private sector. The panel discussion was held on 3 February 2022 and was chaired by Prof. Vibhuti Patel, Visiting Professor, IMPRI.
Pandemic has had a devastating effect on women’s health as has been shown by several reports. Even though there are proposed mental health helplines, the question of it truly benefitting the womenfolk becomes pertinent as a large number of women, more rural than urban either have access to technology or are well versed in its usage. Jasodhara Dasgupta, Co-Convenor, Feminist Policy Collective, drew attention to the NFHS-5 report which reveals that anaemia levels in women have gone up across all age groups. Yet, she notes that the budgetary allocations to address this situation by increasing spending on PDS or on mid-day meals are dismal and, in some cases, have actually declined after adjusting for inflation.
Renu Khanna, Trustee, SAHAJ, Vadodara; Member, Feminist Policy Collective, another panellist at the discussion, highlighted that the health budget has only been allocated 2.26% of the total budget even though health expenditure as a percentage of total expenditure was 2.46% in the year 2020-21. According to her, we should have seen major allocations to the Health sector given the problems faced by people in India during the COVID-19 pandemic. Also, as a part of its planning, it fails to address the massive digital divide between males and females in India where only 21% of Indian women use mobile internet compared to 42% of men, which can have major fallouts in education, health, and overall wellbeing of the citizens.
This union budget has increased the portion of infrastructure spending. However, this move could benefit men only as over the years, the women labour-force has registered a declining presence in the sector, cautioned Prof. N. Manimekalai, Professor, Director, and Head, Department of Women’s Studies, Bharathidasan University, Tamil Nadu. Women’s participation has traditionally been low, Pandemic has further forced women to move to casual labour, and they have had to manage work with household chores. The ecosystem for employment of women has always been poor, the budget has offered no positive direction for women’s employment, in fact, its thrust on digitalization has further created more uncertainty.
Prof. Manimekalai further highlighted the disparity in the self-employment and entrepreneurship sector. While women-led enterprises are increasing, their marketing is not enough, hindering their competency. They propound that women and child protection schemes are lacking, and the capital expenditure-led budget does not address these lacunae. There is an urgent need to acknowledge the employment crisis, universalize PDS allocation, strengthen SHGs, and provide better social protection to ensure more robust female participation.
Seema Kulkarni, Founding Member, Society for Promoting Participative Ecosystem Management (SOPPECOM), Pune; Member, National Facilitation Team, Mahila Kisan Adhikar Manch (MAKAAM) spoke about agriculture and allied activities and how the budget was focused primarily towards privatization. She felt that the budget allocation for the agriculture sector did not give clarity on the allotment for its different components and underlined the importance of recognizing the engagement of women in agriculture. There is a definite need for policies that support and encourage gender diversification in the sector. Citing the example of women’s access to credit as a case in point, she noted that the Census of India points out that only 26% of female cultivators have access to direct agricultural credit. It is a matter of concern as it highlights the unequal access to resources. Over the years, the proportion of women bank account holders has increased significantly even though women’s access to credit is abysmal. It is important to document women workers and provide improvement in the advancement of women’s rights over land, nature, and forests.
Gender Budgeting has been pitched as a tool to rectify the gender inequity and ensure that benefits of socio-economic development reach women as much as men. This necessitates greater participation of all ministries. While there has been a rise in the number of participating ministries, the number is still very dismal, noted Dr. Sanghamitra Dhar, Technical Coordinator (States) – Gender-Responsive Budgeting, UN Women. This lays the ground for a limited formulation, and reach of gender-equitable policies. Capacity building and sensitizing of ministries in gender budgeting is a critical prerequisite for a more just society.
Women, constitute 48% of India’s population, but they lag behind men on many social indicators. Hence, they warrant special attention due to their vulnerability and lack of access to resources, if the country has to make a place globally as one of the truly progressive nations. As Ravi Duggal said during the course of the discussion, the gender budget statement should be developed by undertaking gender audits and that we need to focus on strengthening gender-disaggregated data. Prof Vibhuti Patel summed up the entire discussion stating that the Union Budget 2022-23 is silent on the concerns of social protection and has not focused on issues of inflation, access to education, and healthcare for all.
