Not a women-friendly Budget this year

This year's Union Budget, despite its policy pronouncements for gender budgeting, seems to have budgeted out women. Most big ministries have kept women out, while some have made token allocations.

The allocation for women was a mere 4.8 per cent of the total, which is slightly better than 3.8 per cent last year, sources in the Ministry for Women and Child Development said.

Big ministries like the Defence and Railways decided to keep women at arm's length in funds allocation, while some like the Home ministry wielded the axe on their previous year's gender budget.

Only three new ministries decided to get gender friendly.

Ministries including the Overseas Affairs, Agriculture, Small Scale Industries, Rural Industries and Textiles have managed to create women specific programmes worth Rs 650.07 crore, setting aside 30 per cent of their funds for the purpose.

The total allocation for women specific programmes from all the ministries has seen a rise from Rs 22,251 crore to Rs 31,177 crore.

On the negative side, the rise in allocations has little to do with gender budgeting. A major chunk of the increased allocations, about Rs 5,000 crore, has been contributed by the Ministry of Women and Child Development, which in any case is meant to allocate funds for women.

Ministries including Defence, Water Resources, Tourism, Science and Technology, Earth Sciences, Space, Railways, Food Processing Industries, Finance, Shipping, Mines, Information and Broadcasting, Heavy Industries, Civil Aviation and Environment and Forests have kept women out of their scheme of things.

Sources in the ministry of Women and Child Development, the nodal ministry for advocating gender budgeting, say that ministries like Defence and Ocean Development have consistently refused to open up their budgets to women oriented allocations.

The home ministry, despite its large police force, has constantly refused to either accommodate women recruits or to allocate funds for women.

The Home ministry, which has been setting aside funds for women-specific programmes, has this year axed it substantially. The allocation has come down from Rs 4.36 crore to Rs 1.30 crore.

It has introduced a new component of Rs 10 lakh for hiring women as casual labour. Last year, it had about Rs 98 lakh for day-care centres and other facilities to help women. This year, the allocation has come down to Rs 8 lakh.

Vibhuti Patel, feminist and expert on gender budgeting, said, "The Budget is ideologically advanced, but has no money to match."