Women empowerment in India needs gender budgeting. What are the requirements and status of gender budgeting in the Indian context? (Not more than 200 words)

Inclusive governance is best assessed through its developmental, institutional and implementation dimensions, with equity and resilience as the governing tests.

Gender budgeting is not a separate women-only budget; it is an analytical method ensuring that public resources reduce gender disadvantage. It links expenditure, outcomes and accountability across departments.

Requirements include sex-disaggregated data, gender needs assessment, outcome indicators, gender audit, trained officers and participation of women in planning. Ministries must identify schemes that are wholly or partly gender-targeted and report physical as well as financial results.

India institutionalised Gender Budget Statements in the Union Budget from 2005-06, supported by gender-budget cells and a gender budgeting framework. States have adopted varying practices, but classification often measures allocations rather than actual incidence or quality of outcomes.

The way forward is stronger outcome budgeting, district-level tracking, care-economy investment, women’s land and credit access, safety and skills, and independent evaluation. Parliamentary and local scrutiny should ask whether spending changes agency, assets, income and representation, rather than merely increasing the allocation.

Keywords: social issues; gender equality; public finance; gender budgeting