The 2015-16 budget pledged a 'top-up' of Rs.1,000 crore to the already existing Nirbhaya Fund for ensuring safety of women, while slashing the allocation to the women and child ministry by over half.
The Women and Child Development Ministry received Rs. 21,193 crore in last year's budget, an improvement over the RS. 18,584 crore in 2013-14 .
This year however, in his second outing, Mr. Jaitley slashed it to Rs.10,351 crore, while earmarking Rs.79,258 crore for ongoing schemes related to welfare of women.
The Nirbhaya fund, set up by the UPA government in the aftermath of the December 16 Delhi gangrape, has made more news for being alarmingly underutilised than for making any significant improvement to women's safety.
Besides monetary allocations, Mr. Jaitley spelled out a moderate push for small savings for educating the girl child under the Sukanya Samriddhi initiative.
“Investments in Sukanya Samriddhi Scheme is already eligible for deduction under Section 80C. All payments to the beneficiaries including interest payment on deposit will also be fully exempt,” he said. Women leaders slammed the government's “unenthusiastic attitude” towards women’s development.
“Its shocking...in terms of gender budgeting, the allocation to women in this budget has dropped from Rs.90,000 crore to Rs.80,000 crore. It is an almost 20 percent cut,” CPI (M) leader Brinda Karat told The Hindu .
The government had adopted gender budgeting (or gender-responsive budgeting) in 2005 to help advance gender equality through comprehensive and integrated planning by several government departments. Since then, 57 Ministries/departments have set up Gender Budgeting Cells. “Safe India? The Budget of Ministry of Women and Child Development is reduced by 55% (from Rs.18.588.39 crore to Rs.10382.40 crore),” tweeted human rights activist Enakshi Ganguly.
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