• Gender responsive budgeting (GRB) is a fiscal innovation in that it translates the gender commitments into fiscal commitments through applying a ‘gender lens’ to the identified processes, resources and institutional mechanisms; and arrives at a desirable benefit incidence.
• GRB is not a separate budget for women, or budget which spend the same amount on women and men, but budgets which recognise the different situation and needs of women and men and aim to promote gender equality. Spending and taxation can have very different impacts on women and men because of their different situations, needs and priorities.
• Policies which appear neutral on the surface may have the impact of increasing gender inequality, or may not work in the way they were intended because of these different impacts.

Status of Gender Budgeting in India

• Gender Budget Statement (GBS) was first introduced in the Indian Budget in 2005-06. This GB Statement comprises two parts–
  • Part A reflects Women Specific Schemes,e. those which have 100% allocation for women.
  • Part B reflects Pro Women Schemes,e. those where at least 30% of the allocation is for women.
• India’s gender budgeting efforts stand out globally because they have not only influenced expenditure but also revenue policies (like differential rates for men and women in property tax rates and reconsideration of income tax structure) and have extended to state government levels.
• Gender budgeting efforts in India have encompassed four sequential phases: (i) knowledge building and networking, (ii) institutionalizing the process, (iii) capacity building, and (iv) enhancing accountability.
• Various ministries and department provide information to finance ministry based on which Gender Budget Statement is prepared.
• Also, it was instructed to all the ministries and departments, to open Gender Budgeting Cell (GBC).
• But it has been little more than a decade but progress of gender budgeting is not very encouraging:
• Only 57 Ministries/departments so far have established GBC.
• Over the last decade the allocation for women as a proportion of total budget has remained constant at 5.5 per cent.
• Only about 30% of all the demand for grant presented to union government are reported in gender budgeting statement.
• About 85% of the budget of the Ministry of Women and Child Development is allocated to 1CDS leaving only 15% for other schemes meant for women.
• National Women Commission have budget allocation sufficient enough to meet revenue.

Limitations

• Not only has the magnitude of the gender budget as a proportion of the total expenditure of the Union Budget decreased, the budgetary allocations for promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment have also shown a decline.
• There are only a few “big budget” women exclusive schemes of the Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD) like the Nirbhaya Fund and the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao campaign.
• Lack of dedicated human resources to implement the interventions identified by the GBCs.
• Monitoring remains one of the weakest links in the GRB work with no designated mechanism for monitoring it at the national level.
• Assumptions behind reporting allocations under Part B of the GBS remain questionable.

Looking ahead

• An assessment of gender responsive budgeting in India reveals a mixed picture.
• There are number of positive developments, such as changes in select planning and budgeting processes and creation of gender budget cells.
• However, restricted reach of GB and stagnant or even declining allocations for the gender agenda are stumbling blocks.
• The adoption of the GB should be accompanied by multifaceted and interrelated improvements to budgets in general and the gender sensitivity of budgets.
• There needs to be shift from mere "reporting" of gender allocations to “purposive planning” with wider participation of women.