Union Budget 2024: Budget outlay of over ₹3 lakh crore for schemes benefiting women, girls, says Sitharaman

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday announced that the Modi 3.0 government would be setting out a ₹3 lakh crore Budget outlay towards women and girl-centric schemes.

"The government is allocating over ₹3 lakh crore for schemes benefiting women, girls," she said, adding that the government would set up women-specific skilling programmes to boost women's participation in the workforce. India's female labour force participation rate climbed to 24 per cent in Q2FY24.

At the start of her speech, Sitharaman announced that the government was focused on women, as one of the four major pillars in its policy plans.


"As mentioned in the interim-budget, we need to focus on poor, women, youth and farmers," Sitharaman said in her address.

In addition to these plans, the Finance Minister also spoke of hostels for working women, as well as creches to help them juggle work and home.

"We will facilitate higher participation of women in workforce by setting up of working women hostels in collaboration with industries and establishment of creches in addition the partnership will seek to organise women specific skilling programmes and promotion of market access for women SHG enterprises," the Finance Minister said in her Budget speech.

Tuesday's announcements come even as India continues to add women to its workforce, with gender-wise analysis of payroll data for may 2024 showing that out of the new members added during the month, around 0.24 million were new female members, 12.1% higher than May 2023.

Even the net female member addition during the month was 17.2% higher compared to May 2023 at around 0.36 million, indicating a broader shift towards a more inclusive and diverse workforce, the ministry said.