Gender Budgeting: Requirements and the Indian Status

What it is

• Gender budgeting applies a gender lens to budget planning, allocation and review.
• It asks how each rupee of tax and spending affects men and women.
• Its goal is to close gaps in income, work and well-being between the sexes.
• It covers revenue, expenditure and every stage of the budget cycle.

The core requirements

• Will: a firm political commitment must back the whole exercise.
• Data: gender-disaggregated data is the raw material.
• Cells: every ministry should run a Gender Budget Cell for its own schemes.
• Impact: schemes need a gender impact assessment before and after rollout.
• Audit: regular gender audits must check whether money reached women.
• Voice: civil society and women’s groups must join planning and review.

The two-part classification

• Part A covers schemes where the full 100% allocation is women-specific.
• Part B lists pro-women schemes where 30-99% of funds benefit women.
• Together they form the Gender Budget Statement of the Union Budget.
• Only the Part A share counts as truly women-specific spending.

The institutions behind it

• The Finance Ministry set up its Gender Budget Cell in 2005-06.
• Most ministries and departments now run their own gender budget cells.
• The statement is published with the Expenditure Budget each year.
• Parliament and civil society use it to track women’s allocations.

Milestones since 2005

• India presented its first Gender Budget Statement in 2005-06.
• The Ministry of Finance created its Gender Budget Cell the same year.
• Kerala became the first State to adopt gender budgeting in 2009-10.
• Many States now prepare their own gender budget documents.

The rising allocation

• The gender budget stood at about ₹3.27 lakh crore in FY2024-25.
• It rose to ₹4.49 lakh crore in FY2025-26, about 8.9% of total spending. (Source: PIB, Gender Budget Allocations 2025-26)
• The FY2026-27 statement allocates ₹5.01 lakh crore, up 11.55%. (Source: PIB, Ministry of Finance)
• The share of total spending keeps climbing.

Flagship schemes with a women focus

• Mission Shakti protects and empowers women across the country.
• PM Ujjwala gave clean cooking gas to millions of women-headed homes.
• PM Awaas Yojana registers houses in women’s names wherever possible.
• Lakhpati Didi pushes rural women’s incomes higher.
• Women form more than half the workers on MGNREGA job sites.

The global context

• Australia introduced gender budgeting as early as 1984.
• Around a hundred countries now run some form of it.
• It directly serves Sustainable Development Goal 5.

What still holds India back

• The gender budget remains a small slice of total Union spending.
• The truly women-specific Part A share stays a small fraction.
• Poor gender-disaggregated data weakens planning in many sectors.
• Many ministry gender budget cells exist only on paper.
• Adoption remains uneven across States and local bodies.
• Gender audit is weak and rarely leads to corrective action.

How to strengthen it

• Link every allocation to a measurable outcome for women.
• Build a strong gender data ecosystem across ministries.
• Make gender audit a routine part of public audit practice.
• Extend gender budgeting to States, districts and panchayats.
• Train officers in gender-responsive budgeting.
• Give Parliament and civil society stronger review powers.

• Gender budget rises to ₹5.01 lakh crore in FY2026-27. The statement allocates this for the welfare of women and girls. (Source: PIB, Ministry of Finance)
• 11.55% growth in a year. This is a rise over ₹4.49 lakh crore of FY2025-26. (Source: PIB, Gender Budget Allocations 2025-26)
• Women Empowerment became a separate department. In June 2024 the Cabinet split the Women and Child Development Ministry into two departments. They are the Department of Women Empowerment and the Department of Child Development. (Source: Ministry of Women and Child Development)