Budgeting For Her

For the Union Budget to be gender-sensitive, the government will have to be more innovative, inclusive and responsible with fiscal allocations for women

- Divya J Shekhar

In her 2019 Union Budget speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman waxed eloquent about naari being a narayani (women being goddesses). She said a “bird cannot fly on one wing” while stressing on the equality of men and women in India’s development story. Sitharaman even proposed forming a broad-based committee with “government and private stakeholders” to evaluate the budget with a gender lens and pave the way for more inclusive fiscal outlays. One year on, the committee remains only on paper, while development indices for Indian women have never been more bleak.

The Global Gender Gap Report 2020 released by the World Economic Forum (WEF), for instance, indicates that India slipped four ranks from last year to 112 among 153 countries. The report measures how countries perform in reducing women’s disadvantage compared to men in politics, economic empowerment, health and education. India’s overall ranking is 14 positions lower than where it was in 2006, when the WEF first started measuring gender gap.

The economic disparity between men and women in India is particularly staggering, according to the report, with only one-third (35.4 percent) of the distance being bridged. India ranks among the bottom four countries of the world when it comes to economic participation and opportunities for women (rank 149), followed by health and survival (rank 150).