The Hindu Business Line : Women's groups have great expectations from Budget

In its report, the expert committee had recommended ``a dissection of the Budget to translate gender commitments into budgetary commitments with a view to ensuring effective targeting of public spending.''

New Delhi , Feb. 16

THE Finance Minister has promises to keep to the `better half' of the population on Budget day. His declared intention in the last Union Budget to implement `some' of the recommendations of the Expert Committee on Classification of Government Transactions in the sphere of gender budgeting is awaited with ``great expectation'' by women's groups.

``We are very positive that this Government with its sensitivity for marginalised groups will take gender budgeting forward,'' they said.

However, there are indications that only some aspects of the Budget are likely to have the gender component this time as making allocations under gender heads is a long haul task that would need enormous research inputs and a considerable time span to work out.

``We have tried to include the gender aspect in the overall allocations and women will benefit,'' sources said. However, it seems that forward movement will also be announced as gender budgeting is to feature in this time's Action Taken Report.

Looking at the recommendations of the expert committee, those most likely to materialise include the setting up of a Gender Budgeting Directorate in the Ministry of Finance, institutional set-ups in the ministries to collect gender-disaggregated data and a Standing Committee on Gender Budgeting to identify and share issues on the subject across departments and ministries.

Several countries, both developed and developing, have undertaken gender budgeting. Canada, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Australia and few of the African nations are currently putting gender budgeting into practice in different forms. In Australia, a gender audit is carried out, in South Africa it is a cross-sectoral gender sensitive analysis of expenditure, Sri Lanka does gender conscious planning and sex-segregated data collation, while in the UK along with the budget there is a presentation of a Gender Impact Statement.

The Finance Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, had devoted a whole section to gender budgeting in the 2004-05 Union Budget and taken pains to explain its implications: ``... Budget data should be presented in a manner that the gender sensitivities of the budgetary allocations are clearly highlighted.'' He had also announced that the expert committee on Classification of Government Transactions, which had included gender budgeting in its terms of reference, had submitted its report.

On the gender aspect, the committee had recommended among others things ``appropriate systems for data collection and representation in the Budget'' and ``introduction of periodic benefit-incidence analysis to ensure gender responsive policies''.

``The Finance Minister had promised to implement some of the recommendations in the upcoming Budget,'' said Ms Veena Nayyar, President, Women's Political Watch (WPW), a non-governmental organisation that has, along with other women's groups, been pressing for a gender component in the Budget. Women's groups explain that gender budgeting goes far beyond the specific allocations in the budget for women under the women and child department. It requires for mainstream Budget allocations to be gender specific or structured in a way that can stand the test of a gender differential analysis.

Meanwhile, on International Women's Day (March 8), the WPW intends to announce its decision to prepare a gender budgeting template using the United Nations Millennium Development Goals as a reference point. ``Gender budgeting is an issue concerning democracy, equity and social justice — the bedrock of our Constitution. It's not just a gender issue,'' Ms Nayyar said.

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