The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Gender budgeting all set to make debut in State this year

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Mar 14, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Gender budgeting all set to make debut in State this year

Alladi Jayasri

The objective of the exercise is to make sure that resources reach women

A BETTER FUTURE: Gender budgeting, which will make its debut in the State in the budget to be presented on Friday, will increase spending by government departments on women-specific schemes. — Photo: K. Murali Kumar

Bangalore: Gender budgeting is all set to make its debut in the State Budget 2007-08 to be presented by Deputy Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa on Friday. In the State Budget 2006-07 he made a commitment to make the concept a reality, and the Gender Budget Cell in the Fiscal Policy Analysis Cell has been giving shape to the first gender budgeting statement in Karnataka.

The objective of gender budgeting, which was first introduced in the Union Budget 2005-06, is to address the urgent need to ensure that resources reach women. The first gender budgeting statement in 2005-06 included 10 demands for grants, and the following year it was expanded to 24 demands.

Pilot State

This year the statement covers 33 demands for grants in 27 Ministries/departments and five Union Territories. In 2005-06, Karnataka was chosen as the pilot State for introducing the concept at the State level.

In the first statement, Mr. Yediyurappa is expected to cover almost all the 29 government departments and bring them into the ambit of gender budgeting. Sources told The Hindu that gender budgeting would not remain confined to just a few departments that have been historically perceived as "women-related." Plan expenditure for women-specific schemes will go up from the current Rs. 330 crore, as will non-Plan expenditure from Rs. 230 crore. A bigger piece of the general schemes pie (Rs. 785 crore under Plan and Rs. 6,000 crore under non-Plan) also awaits women.

Until now, departments such as Sericulture, Textiles, Art and Culture, Science and Technology, Information Technology and Biotechnology, Infrastructure, Forest, Ecology and Environment, Water Resources, Labour, Cooperation, Planning and Statistics and Law, Parliamentary Affairs and Legislation have never taken up schemes or budgeted exclusively for women.

With gender budgeting becoming a reality, departments such as Home and Law, which cannot be expected to have schemes for women, can, however, take up programmes that will directly benefit women. The Home Department, for instance, could budget for setting up more police stations to enhance women's sense of security. The Law Department could look at advocacy and legal literacy for women, who are often unaware of their legal entitlements as citizens, sources said.

The three As — audit, advocacy and awareness — will be required to make gender budgeting work. But, more importantly, there a mechanism will be needed to ensure that all departments implement this concept and the audit is held regularly. Some departments such as Energy, Irrigation, Public Works and Major Industries, which have been traditionally excluded from addressing the specific needs of women, could be made to come up with schemes that will ultimately benefit women.

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