Fair enough: PC puts money where his heart is

Sure women are made of sugar and spice and all things nice. Yet, in a country where female foeticide, dowry deaths and mismatch in male-female literacy and unequal wages still trample their spirit, generous budgetary allocations and women-specific schemes can sure help give them more control. At least of their lives.

The FM���s sensitive side comes through with a whopping Rs 28,737 crore set aside for women welfare ��� up from Rs 24,240.51 crore in ���05-06. Of this, Rs 9,575.82 crore accounts for projects wholly devoted to women. The rest accounts for projects where at least 30% is allocated for women.

As economists rooted for a more inclusive Union Budget, prompted by global trends, the Tenth Plan reinforced the need to translate gender commitments to budgetary ones. Last year the FM for the first time made budgetary allocation in this direction. Having covered 10 demands for grants last year, he has expanded the reach to 24 demands for grants across 18 ministries and departments.

It is modelled on the categorisation worked out by the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP) in consultation with the chief economic adviser, Ashok Lahiri. Ministries and departments have started preparing a public expenditure profile of their budgets from a gender perspective, with 32 of them setting up gender budget cells.

A quick look reveals that expenditure on the 100% women-specific programmes is just about 1.7% of the total expenditure budget. Says Lekha Chakravorthy, senior economist, NIPFP, ���There is no magic number. Constant reprioritisation is the only way ahead.���

The second category programmes with at least 30% allocation for women has garnered a Rs 19,160.71-crore allocation. At present, not all allocations are reflected in this segment. There are many more under gender-neutral expenditure. Since the statement reflects the status of just 18 departments, a lot of disaggregated data needs to be processed.

While most allocations are under social sector welfare plans, there is scope for moving towards economic empowerment, social service and regulatory schemes identified by the Budgetary Transactions Committee.