Gender Budgeting is not a separate budget for women; rather it is a dissection of the government budget to establish its gender-differential impacts and to translate gender commitments into budgetary commitments. The main objective of a gender-sensitive budget is to improve the analysis of incidence of budgets, attain more effective targeting of public expenditure and offset any undesirable gender-specific consequences of previous budgetary measures.
Gender budgeting is gaining increasing acceptance as a tool for engendering macro economic policy-making.
In India, gender perspective on public expenditure had been gaining ground since the publication of the report of the Committee on the Status of Women in 1974. The Eighth Five Year Plan (1992-97) highlighted for the first time the need to ensure a definite flow of funds from the general developmental sectors to women. The Plan document made an express statement that “…the benefits of development from different sectors should not by pass women and special programmes on women should complement the general development programmes. The latter, in turn, should reflect greater gender sensitivity”. This approach, however, could not make much dent in ensuring adequate flow of funds and benefits to women.
The Ninth Five Year Plan (19972-2002), while reaffirming the earlier commitment adopted Women Component Plan as one of the major strategies and directed both the Central and the State Governments to ensure “not less than 30 per cent of the funds/benefits are earmarked in all the women’s related sectors”. It also directed that a special vigil be kept on the flow of the earmarked funds/benefits through an effective mechanism to ensure that the proposed strategy brings forth a holistic approach towards empowering women.
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