Madhya Pradesh is the first in eight States of the country where gender oriented budget was introduced in year 2007-08. Other seven States are Tripura, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Assam, Uttarakhand, Karnataka and Kerala.
This was informed by Programme Officer UN Women for India, Bhutan, Maldives and Sri lanka, Bhumika Jhamb, at a symposium held to make a women-oriented plan and budget in the State.
The symposium was held under the aegis of Women’s Empowerment Directorate and UN Women at RCVP Noronha Academy of Administration here on Tuesday. Women’s Empowerment Kalpana Shrivastava and other officers of the directorate were also present on the occasion.
Bhumika Jhamb said that gender budgeting started first in Australia in 1980, which is now being followed by 90 countries. Bhumika Jhamb said that now not only the Union Government, but the State Government is also giving importance to gender budget. She informed that economic efficiency with women’s rights is the basic concept of gender budget. State Governments should promote gender budgeting with transparency and responsibility. She said that schemes coming under ambit of gender budgeting should be minutely monitored from start to implementation.
This symposium has been held to further strengthen gender budgeting in Madhya Pradesh and bring about its positive results. State Government’s role is vital in implementing gender budget with its essence. In this regard, directives issued by Union Secretary Women and Child Development should also be implemented.
Jhamb said that gender budgeting is a policy, which is directly concerned with women’s interests. Whenever gender budgeting is done, special attention should be paid to women belonging to poor, weaker and backward classes. Gender budgeting should not be construed as separate budgets for men and women due to the fact that it does budget planning for women. Every scheme pertaining to women should be minutely monitored to ensure success of gender budgeting. Responsibility of monitoring should be entrusted to civil society also.
Through a presentation, Jhamb threw light on “Opportunities of women’s orientation through planning and budget and its challenges”. In the second session, Mridul Apen, faculty member of Centre for Development Studies, Kerala shared Kerala state’s experiences regarding gender budgeting. Pallavi Mali, Programme Director, Sanket presented a report regarding gender responsive budget. later, Bhumika Jhamb put forth important suggestions regarding gender budgeting in Madhya Pradesh.
Representatives of various departments, social organisations, corporate sector etc. Additional Director Women’s Empowerment RC Raghuvanshi, Joint Director Prema Sethi and State Women’s Resource Centre Deepak Sankat were also present on the occasion.