Fostering Equity: Bihar's Journey with Gender Budgeting

Abstract

To bring Gender equity the Government of India is continuously developing many policies and programmes specifically focused on Women's empowerment. However, women in our country still face various types of differentiation in many areas like economic opportunities, political participation, health and medical facilities and education. For fostering equity, it is important that while distributing public funds the government should see what is the portion going for the well-being of the women. Here comes the main role of Gender Budgeting, which ensures fair allocation of public funds, keeping in mind women's well-being through focused interventions.  Gender Budgeting was introduced in India in 2005. In the financial year 2008-09, Bihar became one of the earliest states in the country to implement gender budgeting practices. From 2008-09 to 2023-24, Bihar has seen 8 Gender budgets and implemented many policies to reduce the gender gap. The main objective of this paper is to analyse the journey of Gender Budgeting in the state of Bihar and to see its impact on Women's empowerment. By analysing the secondary data taken mainly from the Economic Survey of Bihar, different gender budget statements and reports this paper examines Gender Budget allocations in Bihar over time and tries to suggest ways to utilise the allocated funds properly to foster gender equity.