Gender budgeting: MP takes lead

There are two categories of schemes — one, where 100 per cent expenditure is allocated for women and two, where 30 per cent of the provisions of the scheme are allocated for women. The Department of Women and Child has introduced five new schemes enhancing the budgetry allocation considerably aimed at improving female sex ration, health and literacy indicators for girls in the state.

The Department of Industry has stipulated that at least 30 per cent of allocation made under Pradhan Mantri Rozgaar Yojana should be for women.

“Gender budgeting means recognising underlying gender inequalities and addressing them through allocation of public resources,” explains Rashmi Verma, from WomenPowerConnect, a Delhi-based organisation that conducted several workshops with the MP government in making the budget gender-friendly.

For example, there is already a scheme for helping women against domestic violence as a follow-up of the national law made to this effect. Rs 142 lakh has been set aside for making women aware of the provisions of the law.

The second step for MP is to introduce it at the district level. The government is institutionalising generation of sex disaggregated data — departments are being asked to revise their reporting formats so that data regarding beneficiaries is known on the basis of sex. “Sex-disaggregated data is the first step towards effective gender budgeting, something that the Government of India needs to do,” said Verma.

While states like Kerala and Karnataka have adopted the bottoms-up approach (at the panchayat level), Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Orissa have tried introducing it in a few schemes at the macro level.