The Indian union finance ministry has ordered all ministries to specifically report gender budget allocations and expenditures. This move comes after the ministry of women and child development (WCD) unearthed that only 43 ministries, union territories (UTs) and departments had reported the details for the current financial year, as found by a leading daily.
Ajay Seth, the secretary of department of economic affairs in the finance ministry, sent a letter to all ministries, departments and UTs in which he stated that only 43 of them had reported an amount of Rs 1.71 lakh crore in the gender budget statement. Although the figure has seen an increase of 11.5 percent from the 2021-22 allocations, the current gender budget statement could not capture the actual allocations for women. He mentioned that the cause of this was several ministries and departments not reporting the details of various women centric schemes and programmes.
Encouraging the departments that shared the relevant information, Seth said that ministries and departments which have been reporting details under Statement 13 should continue doing the same. He also said that those which haven’t should take up gender budgeting at the earliest taking into account the “government’s priority on women empowerment”.
