{"id":10337,"date":"2021-02-19T15:30:00","date_gmt":"2021-02-19T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/?p=10337"},"modified":"2025-11-05T20:02:53","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T14:32:53","slug":"do-indias-gender-budgets-benefit-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/kn-in\/do-indias-gender-budgets-benefit-women\/","title":{"rendered":"Do India\u2019s gender budgets benefit women?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nearly 5% of India’s total Union Budget 2020-21<\/a> would be spent on schemes that benefit women, stated the gender budget<\/a> for the year. Amounting to Rs 1.4 lakh crore ($19 billion) in 2020-21, the gender budget includes allocations made by different ministries for schemes that fully or partially benefit women.<\/p>

Gender-responsive budgeting, along with supportive laws and other policy measures, could help<\/a> governments track whether public funds are effectively allocated in furthering gender equality and empowering women. India was ranked 112th of 153 countries on the Global Gender Gap Index 2020<\/a>.<\/p>

India started releasing a Gender Budget along with the Union Budget in 2005-06. Ahead of the Union Budget 2021-22*, we analyse how useful, or not, gender budgets have proved to be.<\/p>

\"What<\/a><\/div>

In India, many crucial sectors such as health and education are funded by both central and state governments. In this report, we are analysing the central government’s gender budgets that feature schemes funded by the central government. (At least 16 states<\/a> in India have adopted gender-responsive budgeting and introduced schemes benefitting women, which are included in the state budgets. These allocations do not get counted in the Union Gender Budget statement, and are not part of our analysis.)<\/p>

Allocations and trends<\/strong><\/h3>

Over the last 16 years, India’s Gender Budget has increased from Rs 24,241 crore ($5.5 billion) in 2005-06 to Rs 1,43,462 crore ($19 billion) in 2020-21, a six-fold increase in absolute terms. However, in the last 13 years, the allocations as a proportion to the total budget have stayed constant between 4.3% and 5.9%. The allocation was less than 5% of the total budget in five of the last six years.<\/p>