Union Budgets serve as a critical testament to the government’s priorities, intentions and policy objectives. They thus, not only ensure that the benefits of economic growth are distributed equitably — thereby shaping the socio-economic landscape of the country—but also provide crucial insights into the nation’s governance.
Over the past decade, the BJP-led Union government has often positioned itself as a champion of gender equality, shifting the focus from women’s development to women-led development. And this is well reflected in the Union Budget 2024-25 with its significant allocation — of more than Rs 3 lakh crore — towards the women’s sector. Yet, like any other policy decision, the recent budget brings with it both promises and challenges.
Some of these schemes and initiatives have been highlighted below:
Workforce Participation: Recognising the need to expand childcare infrastructure and services as an important prerequisite for enhancing women’s workforce participation, a provision of Rs 2,300 crore was made under the Ministry of Women and Child Development’s (MoWCD) Samarthya Umbrella Programme which will see the government collaborating with industries to build creches and working women hostels.
Women’s Safety: Budgetary allocation for Nirbhaya Fund—targeted towards improving women’s safety and security—doubled from Rs 100 crore in FY 24 to Rs 200 crore in FY25. This includes an increased allocation for One Stop Centres which provide comprehensive support, medical care, legal assistance and psychological counselling to women who have experienced violence.
The budget further emphasised on the importance of training law enforcement and judicial officers in handling gender-based violence cases. To achieve this, the government intends to organize regular workshops and training sessions to educate officials about gender issues, legal rights, and to treat survivors with respect and dignity.
Education: There is increased funding for initiatives falling under the Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan — which aims to enhance educational opportunities for girls — summing up to a total of Rs 37500 crore. The allocation includes scholarships for girls from economically weaker backgrounds, the provision of free textbooks as well as improved school infrastructure.
Economic Empowerment: The outlay for initiatives like the MUDRA scheme which provides microfinancing to women entrepreneurs and the National Rural Livelihood Mission, under which 91 lakh self-help groups (SHGs) are operational across the country has been decided as Rs 1.4 trillion. These programs are crucial for facilitating women’s access to credit and entrepreneurship opportunities. Besides, the NAMO Drone Didi programme which targets to equip women from 15000 SHGs to use drones for agricultural purposes, received Rs 500 crore.
While there are many other achievements in sectors like health, property procurement, pension schemes, etc. that are worth praising, there are still areas pressing for greater attention and gaps that still need to be filled.
For instance, the budget talks about increasing women’s workforce participation but does not mention anything about women’s wage gap, social security and recognition of their work. This can particularly be seen vis-à-vis the Anganwadi and Asha employees who gathered in New Delhi’s Jantar Mantar in March 2020 to beseech the BJP government to fulfil its 2018 promise of a wage hike. Yet, no announcements were made in this regard.
Similarly, one of the biggest problems that women are facing on ground in India today includes a massive increase in food prices, a huge amount of unpaid labour and a cost of living crisis. Yet, basic things such as enhanced food subsidies and allocation to the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act—which aims at recruiting a higher percentage of women across states—have largely been ignored where the current budget allocation is actually being utilized towards clearing pending dues from the previous fiscal year.
And last but not least, the recent budget has also missed out on the need for gender-aggregated data to be placed in the public domain to see how women have benefitted from gender budgeting over the years. The current budget, in fact, continues to rely on outdated census data which was last conducted in 2011, making it difficult to ensure that every woman is being benefited from these initiatives and schemes.
Extrapolating from this, it would be fair to say that even though the intentions behind the recent budget allocations are commendable, there lies a long journey ahead where several other aspects still need to be considered. But until the time we reach there, the government must establish robust mechanisms for tracking the disbursement and utilisation of funds to ensure that they are reaching the intended beneficiaries.
The writer is a Visiting Fellow with the Observer Research Foundation. Some of her works have appeared in South China Morning Post, The Hindu, Firstpost, Hindustan Times, The Diplomat, The Toronto Star, among several others. She tweets at @akankshakhullar. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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