From Startup Incentives To SC/ST Empowerment: What Women Expect From Budget 2022

The Union Budget 2022 expectations from women are plenty and critical to empowerment, especially in the wake of a pandemic year that left the country ravaged. Due to be announced by Fiance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on February 1, the budget for the upcoming fiscal year will ride in on the hopes of women across industrial sectors as well as social communities fighting for equal footing in society.

Even as women move into greater participatory roles in public society operations, 2021 noted a discouraging trend in the Union Budget's Gender Budget Statement. Allocations earmarked for schemes aimed at benefiting women shrunk 26 percent from 2020, dipping from Rs 2,07,261 crore to Rs 1,53,326 crore.

That the expenditure for gender-oriented offerings remained below the five percent mark of the total expenditure budget last year was a point of concern against India's COVID-19 context that further jeopardised women's safety, careers, resources, security beyond their already marginalised status.

As per a piece by economist Mitali Nikore in SheThePeople, the confluence of patriarchy and poverty has sustained women's low labour force participation in India, with the size only reducing further. Employment post-COVID-19 would negatively affect women hardest, "with women often being the first to be let go and the last to be rehired."

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India is among the world's major economies with one of the lowest female labour rates; data by the Ministry of Statistics last year put the figure at a measly 16.1 percent. Job losses in the pandemic were paired with increased unpaid care work and a widening digital divide, impacting women disproportionately.

As such, the Union Budget 2022-23, the second 'pandemic gender budget,' carries the responsibility of introducing straight effective measures that will uplift the gender demographic. Perhaps taking stock of both the World Bank and the World Economic Forum's consistent recommendations of increasing GDP with greater female labour participation rates would motivate better incentives in the upcoming budget.

Boosters to upskilling and entrepreneurship will give a much-needed push to women's employment, as well as social empowerment.

Investment in government-backed programmes, workshops and mentoring, incubation centres fostering growth of ">women-led businesses, provision of interest-free loans to MSMEs led by women, tax relaxations and a major focus on bolstering girls' and women's education are important building blocks towards gender-oriented upliftment. Supporting and providing for gender-disaggregated data across fields will enhance vision for more productive action plans.

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The government's Digital India campaign warrants a deep gender-focused lens in this context, in light of the digital gap exacerbated by the pandemic. According to an ORF report from last year, India showed the widest gender gap - 40.4 percent - in internet usage within the Asia-Pacific region in recent years. Only 15 percent women are accessing the internet as against 25 percent men.

Women's health should be given central focus, especially in view of the pandemic disrupting maternal health services through lockdowns, healthcare institutions diverting resources to COVID-19 loads and increased food insecurity and mental distress. Encouraging health startups aimed at solutions for women's health can encourage better accessibility simultaneous to public-funded subsidised or free services.

The National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR) also recently flagged a gap in allocated budget and policy implementation in 2021. As per the collective's Dalit and Adivasi budget analysis, in 2021 only 2.07 percent funds were allocated out of eligible government sponsored schemes for women from the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. More here. The gap in implementation needs urgent bridging through guarantees of schemes earmarked and targeted for the welfare of marginalised groups.