In Union Interim Budget 2024-25, Gender Budget shows the largest-ever rise of 38.6%

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Gender Budget Component accounted for 6.5 % of the total Budget.
- Allocation of women specific schemes such as Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana increased considerably.

About Gender Budgeting
- It aims to ensure that public resources are collected and spent efficiently based on differing gender needs and priorities.
  - In India, gender Budgeting was started in 2005-06.
- It does not indicate a creation of a separate Budget for women; rather it seeks to address the specific needs of women.
- It broadly comprises two parts-
  - Part A includes programmes that are completely meant for women.
  - Part B includes all those programmes where at least 30% of the provisions are women-centric.
- It also comes under the Samarthya, sub-scheme of Mission Shakti.
  - Mission Shakti is an initiative of Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD) to empower Women.
    - Mission Shakti’s other sub scheme is Sambal which promotes safety and security of women.
- Nodal Agency: MWCD at central, similarly concerned department act as nodal ehency at state/UTs and district level
- For its implementation, Ministry of Finance issued direction to all central Ministries/Departments to set up Gender Budget Cells.

Challenges faced in Gender Budgeting: Lack of coordination between different stakeholder, expertise in gender analysis and data, etc.

Conduct gender analysis of national and sub-national policies, legal frameworks, etc.
Assess the adequacy of budget allocations to implement the gender responsive policies and programmes.
Conduct and promote gender-based impact assessments, beneficiary needs assessment, etc.

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