The union finance ministry has asked all ministries to specifically report gender budget allocations and expenditures after the ministry of women and child development (WCD) found that only 43 ministries, departments, and union territories (UTs) had reported the details for the current financial year, News18 has learnt.
In a letter to all ministries, departments and UTs, secretary, department of economic affairs in the finance ministry, Ajay Seth, said 43 of them had reported an amount of Rs 1.71 lakh crore in the gender budget statement, and despite this being an increase of 11.5 per cent from the 2021-22 allocations, the gender budget statement could not capture the actual allocations for women as many ministries and departments did not report the details of many schemes and programmes meant for women.
The top official said that ministries and departments which have been reporting details under Statement 13 should continue doing so and those which haven’t should take up gender budgeting at the earliest taking into account the “government’s priority on women empowerment”.
Gender budget
Statement 13 is the budget document which captures the gender budget under various schemes and programmes of different central ministries and departments. As per the government, the gender budget statement is a reporting mechanism for ministries and departments to review their programmes from a gender perspective and present information on allocations for women and girls.
The letter further mentioned that the ministries may undertake a gender-based review of their schemes and programmes to ensure accurate reporting in the gender budget statement and can seek support from the WCD ministry towards that.
In 2004, the finance ministry issued instructions to all ministries and departments to establish a gender budget cell to effectively implement gender-based budgets. The ministry since then compiles information from all ministries and incorporates it as Statement 13 as a part of the expenditure profile document of the union budget.
The gender budget statement is divided into two parts. Part A comprises all women-specific schemes which have 100 per cent allocation for women and Part B reflects schemes which are pro-women, or those where 30 per cent of the budgetary allocation is for women.
Examples of women-specific govt schemes
For instance, 100 per cent women-specific schemes as per the gender budget of 2022-23 include Central Institute for Women in Agriculture, Bhubaneswar, under the Department of Agricultural Research and Education, Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao under the WCD ministry, donation of sewing machines to countries like Zimbabwe and Namibia under the ministry of external affairs, among others.
Examples of 30 per cent women-specific programmes—as per the budget document—include Food and Nutrition Security with a total budgetary allocation of Rs 418.50 crore in 2022-23 under the Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, and Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman (PM POSHAN) under the Department of School Education and Literacy with a total budget of Rs 3070.13 crore in the current financial year.
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