Gender Budgeting in India: An Analysis of Union Budgets

The issue of engendering development and women empowerment has been in the central stage with the shifting of paradigm of development and governance at the global level and particularly in India. Gender budgeting has emerged as an important instrument for gender mainstream and women empowerment across the globe. It has been well recognized by the policy makers and feminist economists that gender budgeting is imperative for gender equality and engendering development planning. Gender budgeting refers to the systematic examination of the budget programmes and policies for the impact on women. Studies show that programmes and policies design to improve women's economic opportunities lead to higher rates of economic growth. Gender budgeting has gained prominence in the policy circles in the recent years. In view of the growing importance of the gender budgeting, the present paper purports to critically analyze the union budgets through gender lens.