The gender budget for the fiscal year 2023 has further shrunk with expenditure declining to 4.3 per cent from 4.4 per cent this year.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s budget speech The women had nothing new to offer. The word woman appeared only six times in his speech.
According to an analysis by the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA), the gender budget has come down from 0.71% of GDP in the revised estimates for 2021-22 to 0.66% in the estimates for 2022-2023.
In absolute terms, however, the gender budget, which includes schemes for women in various ministries, has seen an increase of 11.5% – from ₹1,53,326.28 crore in this fiscal to ₹1,71,006.47 crore for the next fiscal.
At Rs 92,736.5 crore, the children’s budget has also come down from 2.46% of expenditure this fiscal to 2.35% in the next fiscal. According to an analysis by NGO Haq-Center for Child Rights, the proportion of allocation to children is the lowest in the last 11 years.
The budget of the Ministry of Women and Child Development as a share of expenditure has also come down from 0.57% to 0.51%. The ministry received ₹20,263.07 crore.
The FM said that about two lakh Anganwadis will be upgraded and there will be “new generation Anganwadis which have better infrastructure and audio-visual aids, are powered by clean energy and provide better environment for early child development.” However, there has been a negligible increase of 0.7% in the Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0 scheme, under which these works will be carried out. No allocation increase was announced to meet the demands of frontline workers for nutritional support or for minimum wages instead of honorarium.
Schemes that focus on women’s safety under the ministry such as Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao, One Stop Centre, Nari Adalat, Mahila Police Volunteer and Mahila Helpline saw a drop in allocation from ₹587 crore to ₹562 crore. The Ministry’s Mission Vatsalya, which includes child welfare and child protection services, saw a growth of 63.5% to ₹900 crore.
“Women are a large number of beneficiaries in schemes that include MGNREGA, National Social Assistance Program and schemes for the welfare of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, minorities and other weaker sections. The combined expenditure on these schemes has come down from 3.2% of the revised expenditure in 2021-22 to 2.5% of the budget allocation in 2022-2023. This shows that there is no place for women in the vision of ‘Amrit Kaal’ of the government.”
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