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Gender Budget Statement in India 2024-25 and Contributing Factors

Context: This year’s share of allocations to pro-women schemes stands at approximately 6.8% of the total budget expenditure for 2024-25.

Overview of the Gender Budget Statement (GBS)

  • The GBS has been instrumental in allocating funds to pro-women programs since its inception in 2005-06.
  • This year marks a significant increase from the average 5% in previous years.
  • This rise has resulted in a total allocation surpassing ₹3 lakh crore, achieving 1% of the GDP for the first time.

Factors Contributing to Increased Allocations

  • Introduction of Part ‘C’ in the GBS: This new section includes schemes with less than 30% provisioning for women.
    • Example: The PM Kisan scheme is now part of Part C with a ₹15,000 crore allocation, accounting for 25% of its total outlay.
  • Increase in Part A Allocations: Part A had previously constituted 15-17% of overall allocations reported in the GBS till BE 2022-23.
    • Now there was a sudden increase in the allocations in part A that raised the share of pro-women schemes with 100% allocations, for women to almost 40%.
    • A key change was the inclusion of the entire ₹80,670 crore allocation for the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) — rural and urban — under Part A, previously split between Parts A and B.

Gender Budget Statement in India 2024-25_4.1

Instances of Misreporting

  • Over-reporting: The PM Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP), which aims to assist entrepreneurs in setting up micro businesses in the non-farm sector.
    • The GBS reported an allocation of ₹920 crore or 40% of the total allocation to PMEGP, without providing any explanation for such reporting.
  • Under-reporting: Previous budgets under-reported allocations for the National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM) and omitted schemes benefiting women entrepreneurs like PM Vishwakarma, SVANidhi, and Stand-Up India.
    • Example:
      • Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS): Despite women constituting 59.3% of person-days as of December 2023, only 33.6% of MGNREGS’s total budget (₹28,888.67 crore) is reflected in the GBS.

Need for Enhanced Reporting and Accountability

  • Incorporating Detailed Explanations: By adding detailed explanations for the figures entered in the Gender Budget Statement (GBS) can also aid in gender audits and foster better gender outcomes in government programs.
  • Reflection of Advocacy in Reporting Enhancements: The advocacy by experts for enhanced reporting is evident in the introduction of a third part in the GBS.
    • This development, however, also highlights that the GBS still lacks a scientific and systematic approach to reporting.
  • Ongoing Efforts and Remaining Challenges: While there are clear efforts underway to address misreporting and enhance the quality of the GBS, substantial progress is still needed.
    • This is to ensure that funds are genuinely directed towards women’s development from the initial planning stages of all government programs.
  • The Importance of Gender-Responsive Budgeting: Gender-responsive budgeting is essential for addressing and narrowing gender gaps within the economy.
    • Additionally it ensures that budgeting processes are more inclusive of women’s needs right from the start.

Conclusion

The enhancements in the GBS are a positive step towards more transparent and accountable gender-responsive budgeting. Still, further refinements are needed to ensure that the reported allocations truly benefit women and contribute to closing the gender gaps in the economy. This requires a continued focus on detailed reporting and an emphasis on actual spending directed towards women’s needs from the planning stages of all government programs.

Gender Budgeting in India
  • In India, the gender budget was first introduced in 2005-2006 in order to keep an account of resource allocation in a way that would help in the achievement of gender mainstreaming and to ensure that the benefits of development reach women as much as men.
  • It has broadly been divided into two parts:
    • Part A comprises schemes that are entirely related to women
    • Part B includes schemes in which at least 30 per cent of the provisions relate to the women.
  • In the last 15 years, the gender budget has seen no significant increase, carrying an average of 4.9 per cent.
  • However, this year’s fiscal budget’s gender component takes into account allocation across 30 union ministries and departments along with the five Union Territories.
  • It accounts for almost 5 per cent of the total government expenditure and 0.8 per cent of India’s GDP.

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