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Business News/ Politics / Policy/  Rural women finally enter the budget lexicon
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Rural women finally enter the budget lexicon

Funds to be spent on several Centrally-sponsored programmes, including some gender-neutral initiatives like MGNREGS

The allocation in 2016-17 for the welfare of women was Rs90,624.76 crore, which is 4.5 % of government spending. Photo: Priyanka Parashar/MintPremium
The allocation in 2016-17 for the welfare of women was Rs90,624.76 crore, which is 4.5 % of government spending. Photo: Priyanka Parashar/Mint

New Delhi: Budgetary allocation for women, who constitute 48.5% of India’s population, is 5.2% of the total government spending. This is slightly over 5% in 2005-06 when gender-responsive budgeting started in India.

This money will be spent on several Centrally-sponsored programmes, including some gender-neutral schemes like the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).

The allocation in 2016-17 for the welfare of women was Rs90,624.76 crore, which is 4.5 % of government spending. Total allocation specifically to the ministry of women and child development in 2016-17 was Rs17,351 crore. In budget 2017-18, it is Rs22,094.67 crore.

Presenting the Union budget, finance minister Arun Jaitley said, “We shall continue to undertake many more measures to ensure that the fruits of growth reach the farmers, the workers, the poor, the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, women."

This budget, unlike the previous three budgets, focused on rural women—not as much in terms of numbers on paper, but in identifying their problems. Instead of security and safety and CCTVs, the focus is about the need to skill and make women in rural India digitally literate.

Saying “Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas" begins with the girl child and women, Jaitley announced that Mahila Shakti Kendras will be set up at village level with an allocation of Rs500 crore in 14 lakh Integrated Child Development Scheme’s Anganwadi Centres. This, he said, will provide one stop convergent support services for empowering rural women with opportunities for skill development, employment, digital literacy, health and nutrition.

To be sure, Mahila Shakti Kendras is a convergence model on the same lines as the UPA government’s Poorna Shakti Kendra (under National Mission for Empowerment of Women) that was also introduced as a one stop for socio-economic development of women and girls in rural India.

“The overall increased allocation to social security schemes like MGNREGA will obviously benefit women, but gender should be a hard budget constraint. We have to go beyond obvious allocations. For all the key announcements like tax, infrastructure, health, there should have been some amount kept separately for women. You can't reduce women’s health to reproductive health alone. That is again reinforcing the stereotype about the role of women," said Shamika Ravi, senior fellow, Brookings India.

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Published: 02 Feb 2017, 03:53 AM IST
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