GENDER BUDGETING

Relevance:

• Sociology: Stratification and Mobility:
  Concepts- equality, inequality, hierarchy, exclusion, poverty and deprivation.
• GS paper II: Governance

Introduction:

• Gender budgeting is a policy with a primary goal of re-orienting the allocation of public resources, advocating for an advanced decision- making role for women in important issues, and securing equity in the distribution of resources between men and women.
• Gender budget is not a separate budget for women; rather it is an attempt to establish the budget’s gender-specific impact and to translate gender commitments into budgetary commitments.
• Generally, budgeting involves four components: the budgetary allocation of resources to various heads, the actual Government outlays on various heads, an accounting of how resources are utilised for a particular purpose and an evaluation of the effectiveness of the resources utilised in delivering the intended results. Gender budgeting involves looking at all the four components from the point of view of women as beneficiaries.

Significance of gender budgeting:

Gender equity:

• Women in India continue to face disparities in access to and control over resources. These disparities are reflected in indicators of health, nutrition, literacy, educational attainments, skill levels, occupational status among others.
• Gender budgeting helps remedy the disadvantages and discrimination against women and fighting marginalisation and exclusion from economic, political, and constitutional processes.
• The Constitution of India has mandated equality for every citizen of the country as a fundamental right. Gender budgeting allows the governments to promote equality through fiscal policies.
• Women’s economic empowerment plays a crucial role in tackling gender inequality. Gender Budgeting helps identify the needs of women and reprioritize expenditure to meet these needs.
• An analysis of the scores on GDI (Gender Development Index) and GII (Gender Inequality Index) for different countries show that GII is significantly determined by gender budgeting initiatives, public spending on health and female labour force participation.

Economic growth:

• Apart from the basic principle of promoting equality among citizens, gender equality can benefit the economy through efficiency gains. There is a growing awareness that gender inequality is inefficient and costly to develop.
• There are a number of gender-specific barriers which prevent women and girls from gaining access to their rightful share in the flow of public goods and services. Unless these barriers are addressed in the planning and development process, the fruits of economic growth are likely to completely bypass a significant section of the country’s population. This, in turn, does not augur well for the future growth of the economy.
• Currently, the contribution of Indian women to the GDP (17 per cent) is far below the global average (37 per cent).

Economic efficiency:

• Given the fact that the needs of women and men and girls and boys may be different and that gender Budgeting not only influences expenditure but also revenue policies at national and State government levels, gender Budgeting helps ensure greater efficiency in fiscal policy.
• Gender Budgeting acknowledges the linkages between economic and social policy outcomes.
• The gender budgeting statements allows the government to build up sex-disaggregated or gender-relevant data, though more sustained efforts are required to ensure that the data are used to guide effective programmes and policies.

Difference between gender and Sex:

• Gender is the culturally and socially constructed roles, responsibilities, privileges, relations and expectations of women and men, boys and girls. Because these are socially constructed, they can change over time and differ from one place to another.
• Sex is the biological make-up of male and female people. It is what we are born with, and does not change over time, nor differs from place to place.

Gender Budgeting in India:

• The year 2001 proved to be a watershed year with respect to orientation of the budget making process towards gender sensitivity and gender empowerment.
• Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) was adopted by India in 2005 following which at least 57 government ministries/departments set up Gender Budgeting Cells. Since 2005–06, the Expenditure Division of the Ministry of Finance has been issuing a note on Gender Budgeting as a part of the Budget Circular every year. This GB Statement comprises two parts: Part A and Part B.
• Part A reflects Women Specific Schemes, i.e. those which have 100 per cent allocation for women. Part B reflects Pro-Women Schemes, i.e. those where at least 30 per cent of the allocation is for women.
• India has integrated gender budget within the Expenditure Budget and also given instructions to integrate it into the Outcome Budget.
• India has been a leading example of Gender Budgeting in the Asia Pacific region, as acknowledged by the United Nations.
• The 2019 Union Budget speech proposed the constitution of a committee to evaluate 15 years of Gender Budgeting.

A Successful example:

In the Union Budget 2016– 17, the Finance Minister integrated gender budgeting in the energy sector by a policy initiative on care economy, to uplift poor women in the energy ladder to Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) subsidies. This was the first time in the history of the country that the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas implemented a welfare scheme benefiting many women belonging to the poorest households. This is a good example of how a prima facie gender-neutral ministry like the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas can design a policy to address women’s needs.

Way forward:

• An analysis conducted by the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy reveals that Gender Budgeting has not translated effectively into policies that impact women despite being a promising fiscal innovation, to begin with. There is a need to evaluate the impact of Gender Budgeting in India and take corrective actions.
• Quantum of budgetary allocation for women-focused schemes vis-a-vis total budgetary allocation should be increased and at the same time implementation of the policies should be so monitored that the allocated budget is spent strictly under the head it was allocated for.
• There is the need to build capacity at the centre and state level for better implementation of gender budget and improvement in fiscal marksmanship.
• There is an ongoing debate in India to integrate gender in formula-based transfers to states from the Finance Commissions, though it has not yet materialised. The Fourteenth Finance Commission of India, which reported in January 2015, integrated “climate change” variables in the formula-based fiscal transfers. Perhaps gender development variables may become the mandate for future Finance Commissions.
• The revenue side of the gender budget should also be strengthened to empower women through innovative taxation policies.
• Gender Budgeting has both expenditure as well as a revenue aspect. The revenue side of Gender Budgeting is still in the nascent stages. Revenue policies that provide favourable treatment to women may help to improve their paid work efforts, access to land and property, and their ability to accumulate financial savings and investments, as well as enhance their children’s access to education and health, and increase their “say” in intra-household decisions.

Quote:

Swami Vivekananda’s quote on the issue of gender equality. Vivekananda said, “It is not possible for a bird to fly on one wing.”, emphasizing the importance of women in the development of a country.