Although maternity benefits went up, step failed to meet the government’s own estimates, says expert
At the outset, one of key areas of spending in the Union Budget 2017 was women and child development, where the allocation got the composite gender budget up 24 per cent to Rs 1,13,326 crore from Rs 90,769.80 crore in 2016-17. One of the areas under gender budgeting where the budgetary allocation went up significantly was the maternity benefits scheme — the Indira Gandhi Matritva Awas Yojana — where grants went up from Rs 400 crore in 2016-17 to Rs 2,700 crore.
Yet, if one looks at the number of beneficiaries — 53 lakh — and the amount set aside, there seems to be a lot missing. "At the rate of Rs 1,000 per month for 6 months, the scheme expenditure towards maternity benefits to 2.25 crore pregnant and 15 (lakh) lactating women works out to be Rs 14,512 crore per annum," reads a January 2013 Lok Sabha Standing Committee report on food, consumer affairs and public distribution. "While the maternity benefits for pregnant and lactating women went up, this does not meet the government's own estimates. The number of beneficiaries are significantly underestimated," said Kanika Kaul, gender budgeting expert at the Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA).
Apart from the maternity benefits scheme, the allocation for women and child development (WCD) ministry went up over 26.7 per cent from Rs 17,408 crore to Rs 22, 094.07 crore in direct expenditure. Under the WCD ministry, the allocations for Beti Bachao Beti Padhao went up twofold to Rs 200 crore. Allocations for the National Crèche Scheme went up from Rs 150 crore in 2016-17 to Rs 200 crore, and that for Child Protection Scheme went up from Rs 397 in 2016-17 to Rs 648 crore. The allocation for National Mission for Empowerment of Women went up from Rs 50 crore to Rs 70 crore, and that for One Stop Crisis Centres went up marginally from Rs 75 crore to Rs 90 crore. Yet, allocations for the women helpline was halved from Rs 20 crore to Rs 10 crore.
One of the crucial components under the gender budgetary grant — the Nirbhaya Fund — a corpus formed to combat violence against women has grants from two ministries — WCD and the home ministry. Unlike last year, there were no grants from the railway ministry when the grant was Rs 200 crores.
Going by the initial reading, the grants from the WCD ministry came down by over 30 per cent, from Rs 585 crores (in revised estimates) in 2016-17 to Rs 400 crore this year. The funding under home ministry went up over 25 per cent to Rs 313 crore this year, from Rs 250 crore in 2016-17. "Other schemes like the Swadhar Greh (home for widows) which got a grant of Rs 100 crore, the one stop crisis centres and the women's helpline did not get an adequate amount of funding," said Kaul.
The finance minister also announced Mahila Shakti Kendras with a Rs 500 crore corpus to act as "one stop convergent support services for empowering rural women with opportunities for skill development, employment, digital literacy, health and nutrition." These centres are to be facilitated through 14 lakh Anganwadi centres under the ICDS scheme, however, get only about Rs 3,500 each under the scheme. The Stand Up India scheme will be launched in April 2017 to help women entrepreneurs.
Additionally, a slew of schemes that are not entirely directed at women will in some sense benefit them. The increased allocation under MNREGA to Rs 48,000 crore will benefit women as they make up 55% of the beneficiaries. The increased lending credit of Rs 2.44 lakh crore under the PM Mudra Yojana will benefit women, too.
The allocation for the ICDS scheme, which looks at nutrition for women and children, got a composite funding of Rs 16745 crore.
The spend on essentials, women’s activist said, did not see any change. "No financial commitment has been made to set up the much-required anti-sexual harassment committees for working women of the informal sector. Other demands such as building of a greater number of crèches and working-women's hostels in all cities, and for the provision of a special old age pension scheme for women has been swept under the carpet," said Maya John of the Centre for Struggling Women (CSW).
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