Decoding the Budget Through a Feminist Lens By Rohitha Naraharisetty talks to Vibhuti Patel Feb 2, 2023 https://theswaddle.com/decoding-the-budget-through-a-feminist-lens/
gender gap in five important areas. One, adverse sex ratio. Second is education . Third is employment — Fourth is decision making — Fifth is gender-based violence. supply-side economics and growth doesn’t translate to welfare or empowerment.
Women and children should be separated because right now, the majority of the budget goes to Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), which also addresses women and children. And the second part of this allocation goes to reproductive and Child Health (RCH).
support to self-help groups (SHGs), there’s big applause about the budget allocating massive resources to SHGs. Yes, they did play a heroic role during the pandemic, but who will mediate them? If you are just parking money in private microfinance, they will exploit these women. We have had cases of women borrowers dying by suicide because of the bouncers who would humiliate and degrade them. These are some of the very serious concerns that we have.
Also, look at the budget on gender-based violence: with the Nirbhaya fund that has been allocated since 2013 — 1,000 — crores per year, you hardly see any utilization. There are states and union territories where there is 100% non-utilization of the fund. Though there is a clause that money cannot be diverted, most of the time, what is allocated for gender gets diverted. In Maharashtra, they recently bought SUVs and vehicles for MLAs using the Nirbhaya fund.