JOIN USCAG flags Karnataka's gender budget as a 'mere allocation exercise'
Despite an increase in allocation under gender budget for the welfare of women, it has not translated into higher investment for women-specific schemes, a Comptroller Auditor General (CAG) report has found.
“Gender budgeting is reduced to a mere allocation exercise,” the report noted, recommending the government to “assess policy impact and formulate need-based policies” for women’s welfare.
The allocation for Women and Child Development Department increased annually from 2016-17 onwards with a slight dip in 2019-20. “...With respect to Education and Health sectors, there was no increase in the allocation for women-specific schemes in the last five years,” the CAG audit report on state finances said.
Analysis of gender budget documents showed that higher allocations did not guarantee higher spending on women, the report said, citing Mathrushree scheme - aimed at improving the nutritional health status of pregnant and lactating mothers, and SABALA scheme as examples.
Allocation for Mathrushree, for instance, increased from Rs 350 crore in 2018-19 to Rs 470 crore in 2019-20. However, the expenditure in 2019-20 was only Rs 78.24 crore - 16.64% of the total allocation. Similarly for SABALA - a scheme for empowerment of adolescent girls - allocation grew from Rs 4.23 crore in 2018-19 to Rs 9 crore in 2019-20, but the expenditure was only Rs 76 lakh.
The CAG also delineated between Category A - specific schemes with 100% allocation for women, and Category B - which are pro-women schemes with more than 30% of the budget meant for women. Social services constituted more than 99% of the total allocation under Category A, (while) the economic services accounted for less than one per cent.
“This indicated that schemes for training and skill development, provision for credit, infrastructure, marketing etc, which are critical to women’s independence and autonomy (but) did not receive adequate focus,” the report noted.
Task force
Though a task force was constituted in 2013 to monitor and suggest improvements in implementing gender budgeting, it met only twice between 2015-16 to 2019-20.
The CAG has recommended the state government to evaluate the policies and budget allocations aimed at women. The evaluation needs to be done “along with the benefit incidence of various schemes and allocations in order to under the progress being made,” the report added.
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