Budget missed an opportunity to promote ‘Nari Shakti’

This year India’s Republic Day parade saw a number of colorful tableaux from across the country celebrating ‘Nari Shakti’, or women power. It came close to the manifestation of the Prime Minister’s vision for the ‘Amrit Kaal’, a favorable period driven by “women-led development”. This policy emphasis is also reflected in official documents such as official documents. Economic Survey 2022-23Which highlights the leadership of women self-help groups (SHGs) during Covid and examines measurement issues in calculating India’s low female labor force participation rate (FLFPR).

Despite this attention, however, India’s budgetary outlay for 2023-24 stops short of supporting the levers that could move the needle on women’s labor-force participation and empowerment. For example, as a percentage of total expenditure, the budget allocation for the Ministry of Women and Child Development has fallen from 0.64% in 2022-23 to 0.56% in 2023-24. In addition, the budget items of the ministry’s plans were reshuffled, making it difficult to capture year-on-year spending trends. The allocation for its Sambal schemes, including Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao, One-Stop Centres, Nari Adalat and Mahila Police, has remained the same. 562 crores. While mandates of affordability plans have expanded, budget estimates have declined 2,622 crores from 2,581 crores. There has been a marginal increase in the budget for Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0 (1.01%).

The Centre’s outlay for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA), which is crucial for women’s employment in rural areas (as of December 2022, women accounted for 56% of all person-days generated under it), is less than Has gone 73,000 crores from 60,000 crores. The decline is sharper than the revised estimate for 2022-23 89,400 crores. Given that MGNREGA is a demand-driven scheme, these numbers show high demand for livelihood support but reluctance to spend on it. Similarly, in case of women leadership at the grassroots level through SHGs, the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM) program has seen only a marginal increase of about 1.05%. On the urban front, there is no allocation for the National Urban Livelihoods Mission (NULM) and it has not been replaced by any other scheme focused on SHGs in urban India.

Overall, this year’s gender budget outlay (as per Statement 13 of the Union Budget) is 4.95% of total expenditure, slightly higher than last year’s initial budget estimate (4.33%). However, it should be noted that this increase is still lower than last year’s revised estimate (when the gender budget was 5.21% of total expenditure) as well as the actual expenditure in 2021-22 (at 5.52%).

These numbers establish that the political significance of ‘Nari Shakti’ has not been translated into corresponding budget allocations. This is perhaps explained by the holistic approach to job creation adopted in this Union Budget, where the government is banking on the multiplier effect of capital expenditure on job creation and consumer demand. However, we believe that more needs to be done.

First, while it is certainly relevant, it will take time for jobs to materialize from public capital expenditure – such as building roads and railways, where government spending can encourage private investment. With the finalization of tender processes, MoUs for such projects to be signed and work to begin in earnest, the time taken could be long. For example, by August 2022, according to data from the Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation on infrastructure projects cited above 150 crore, 647 projects were delayed, and the reasons for the reported time delay include delay in land acquisition, obtaining forest and environment clearances, and lack of infrastructure support and linkages. Therefore, in the short term, schemes that generate wage employment for women are important to meet the immediate needs. Second, once capital expenditure has created jobs, for women to benefit from these opportunities, there will need to be quality jobs that match aspirations, skills and desired geographies. The record shows that local projects such as work created in and around the surrounding area are likely to be better suited to women’s circumstances. Therefore, while capital expenditure may create jobs in general, it may create fewer of these for women than for men. A recent report shows that only 12% of the workforce in the Indian manufacturing sector is female. Therefore, over-reliance on capital expenditure would risk having a gender-blind approach to job creation. Third, capital expenditure could perhaps be directed towards building more gender-responsive public infrastructure that would make it easier and safer for women to work, such as public crèches, public toilets, etc., but this budget seems to This opportunity is lost.

While the Union Budget is not the only means of creating jobs for women in the economy, it is certainly an important one. To realize our ambition of a $10 trillion economy driven by ‘women-led growth’, we need a gender mindset across all government spending. Why women drop out of the workforce is a complex social problem that cannot be solved simply by increasing the overall supply of jobs. We need to create jobs that are easily accessible by women and create enabling conditions like care support and other infrastructure that can help Indian women to unleash their ‘power’.

Aparajita Bharti and Sonakshi Chowdhary are Founding Partner and Manager, Strategic Partnerships and Communications, respectively, at TQH Consulting.