Nirmala Sitharaman, India’s first full-time female finance minister, is set to make history as she would be the first woman to table four budgets in India’s cabinet, presenting the second after the start of the unprecedented COVID-19 crisis. As this year’s budget also focuses on economic recovery, resilience and growth, India has an opportunity to mainstream women’s economic participation.

Women are the country’s untapped potential; for every 7 men in paid employment or looking for work, less than two women work in India. With a focus on women, the 2022-2023 budget can be instrumental in building a more inclusive and sustainable economy, while transforming India into a self-reliant global power.

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While the Gender Budget has so far succeeded in bringing attention to gender issues, over 90% of allocations are made by just five Ministries and Departments: Rural Development, Health and Family Welfare, Resource Development Human Rights, Women and Child Development and Agriculture. Although targeted programs under these ministries have reduced sectoral inequalities, gender responsive budgeting needs to be increased and mainstreamed across all ministries, starting with those managing and stimulating emerging sectors of national importance.

With less than 30% in services and 12% in manufacturing, women currently represent a small part of the workforce in these sectors. While socio-economic and cultural barriers have traditionally kept women at bay, India’s new journey towards sustainability offers it the opportunity to become an inclusive economy.

Recognizing these opportunities, the 2022-23 budget should encourage all ministries to increase the proportion of gender-responsive budgeting. Funds should be allocated to improve skills development for girls and women based on results, in close collaboration with industry. This would allow workers to earn while learning. One industrial interface that the budget should encourage is that with digital platforms.

Digital platforms offering passenger mobility, hyperlocal deliveries, home business services, online tasks, etc. are prevalent in more than 300 cities and towns in India. They have a transformative impact on workers, equipping them with transferable skills, enabling horizontal and vertical worker mobility and increasing their earning opportunities. In 2020, digital platforms started to develop street vendors in collaboration with the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, under the PM Street Vendor AtmaNirbhar Nidhi Yojana (PM SVANidhi Scheme).

The platforms have also enabled the development of drivers and professional home service providers, etc. in collaboration with the Ministry of Skills Development and Entrepreneurship. Additionally, reskilling and upskilling opportunities could be designed specifically for women transitioning from high-carbon roles to low-carbon jobs. Increasing the gender budget allocated to these training initiatives has the potential to attract more women into the economy.

An expanded gender budget should also aim to promote entrepreneurship among women, increasing their access to assets such as vehicles and smartphones, and cash flow-based institutional credit. Today, through the platform of our lives and our work, an individual can monetize their idle assets – whether it is a vehicle, a smartphone or their skills – when and where they want. , a benefit missing from traditional economic opportunities. It is an attractive proposition for women, who can be seen working in unconventional and non-traditional jobs not only in the major cities of India but also in the hinterlands.

Thus, the necessary budgets should be allocated to the expansion of formal credit, the promotion of financial technologies and the stimulation of the platformization of jobs in all sectors. Budgets should be improved to make all sectors more gender-responsive, from gender-based hiring incentives, for example, to providing tax breaks to companies that have gender-neutral systems and processes.

These are just a few surefire ways to integrate women into the economy. After all, increasing female labor force participation by just 10 percentage points could add US$770 billion to India’s GDP. India needs a renewed approach to gender-responsive budgeting to take into account the new priorities of the 21st century, including those posed by India’s commitment to a clean and green future. With an expanded budget for gender equality, India will be well placed to become a self-reliant country driven by intention, inclusion, investment, infrastructure and innovation, the formula established by our Hon. Prime Minister.

-The author Aishwarya Raman is director and head of research at the Ola Mobility Institute. The opinions expressed are personal.

(Edited by : Priyanka Deshpande)

First post: January 27, 2022 at 1:39 PM STI