Once again, the Finance Minister made a mere tokenism in addressing the concerns, well-being and development of one half of the population. Arun Jaitley’s Budget did make the right noises such as “safety of women”, and “beti bachao-beti padhao” (save and educate the girl child) in his Budget speech, but when it came to making concrete financial allocations, the kitty at his disposal just didn’t measure up.
He began the gender bit of his speech by grandly announcing that “to improve the safety of women in public transport” buses the Government would set aside in a pilot scheme “a (modest) sum of Rs 50 crore.” To improve the safety of women in larger cities another Rs 150 crore has been set apart.
He gave a fraction of the Indian women glued to their TV sets, and the much larger mass of women who have no clue or any interest in the Budget, no details on how this money was supposed to be utilised. Neither was there even a token verbal concern about the alarming rate at which girls and women continue to be raped in this country.
We did get a bit of rhetoric on issues like “gender mainstreaming” and beti bachao-beti padhao. For the second one, Jaitley began by sounding a strident note: “It is a shame that while the country has evolved as a major player in the world economy, the apathy towards the girl child is still quite rampant in many parts of the country.” Along with that the scheme to save the girl child, and educate her too was launched… and for this herculean task a paltry sum of Rs 100 crore was set aside.
One waited for his “gender mainstreaming” bit to be more effective. But it turned out that all that our brand new government at the Centre will do for this cause is “focus on campaigns to sensitise people on the concerns of the girl child and women.”
Since the process of sensitisation has to begin early, in our school textbooks we will now have an entirely separate chapter devoted to gender mainstreaming. Bravo!
All the pre-Budget predictions on how this Government would give extra tax sops for women, vanished into thin air.
But then, wait a moment… women in self-help groups will get bank loans at 4 per cent interest in another 150 districts. On their slender shoulders, rests the mammoth task of the economic empowerment of Indian women!