PANAJI
In a first, the Pramod Sawant government introduced in its State budget for 2024-25 the concept of 'gender budget' encompassing welfare schemes and other government assistance to women and girls under 13 different departments and earmarking a total expenditure of Rs 2,000 crore.
The 'gender budget' part of the overall budget exercise presented by Sawant in the budget session earlier this year, lists schemes under which benefits are disbursed to over 11 lakh accounts across the 13 departments, including Women and Child, Tribal Welfare, Health and agriculture.
The budget document states that there are eleven lakh and fifty-eight thousand women and girls who avail these benefits, apparently a large section of which avail multiple benefits from different departments.
According to the 'gender budget' document, the concept has been introduced to help achieve 'sustainable development goals' as espoused in the United Nations' objective of eliminating discrimination against women.
The first of Sawant's gender budget covers schemes which are 100 percent women-centric, others which are between 30 and 99 per cent women-centric a few others which are lower than 30 per cent women centric.
In all, 139 women-centric schemes which are administered by 13 different departments are listed. Officials of these departments were trained before the current fiscal's gender budget was prepared with the assistance of the UN's women's division.
The departments of women and child welfare, commerce and agriculture, tribal welfare, social welfare, police, rural development, education, higher education, health care, transport, animal husbandry, fisheries and industry are all included.
Some more departments will be brought under this concept of gender budgeting in the next financial year and a section will be dedicated to incorporating portions of the Central government's budget for women.
