Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 150
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 151
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Warning (512): Unable to emit headers. Headers sent in file=/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php line=853 [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 48]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 148]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 181]
LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Budget 2018: Will Women Really Be Better Off at the End of This Fiscal? -Barkha Deva

Budget 2018: Will Women Really Be Better Off at the End of This Fiscal? -Barkha Deva

Share this article Share this article
published Published on Feb 16, 2018   modified Modified on Feb 16, 2018
-TheWire.in

In the gender Budget, the Modi government has not done much more than pay lip service to policies that impact women.

Soon after the Union Budget was presented, the PMO tweeted Modi as saying: “Special emphasis has been given on women empowerment in the Budget.”

A high-voltage communication campaign followed highlighting key proposals for women, including an increase in commitments for the Ujjwala scheme to provide free gas connections to eight crore below poverty line (BPL) families, higher coverage under the MUDRA Yojana and a reduction in EPF contributions for women employees.

But are women really going to be better off at the end of this fiscal year?

The government’s cooking gas scheme, Ujjawala, was meant to change lives of BPL women by providing free LPG connections to poor households. While there’s no denying that the number of new connections has grown, a closer look at the performance of the scheme shows it has failed to achieve its long-term objectives. The scheme allows just the first refill of a cylinder for free, and the consumer is expected to buy the next one at market prices, while the subsidy is credited directly to her bank account.

Reports from villages adopted by the PM in his constituency Varanasi are witness to the fact that the programme is failing. Most of the targeted families are too poor to pay the market price of the cylinders, and women who availed the scheme have had to revert to using the wooden chullah. The fact that they now save the gas cylinder for emergencies is visible in the figures that show average consumption of LPG cylinders has plummeted across the country over the past year or so.

The government’s plans to increase the footprint of the MUDRA scheme based on their claim that the scheme has successfully created crores of women entrepreneurs also need a closer look. The government claims that 10.07 crore SME entrepreneurs have benefitted under the Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana and 75% of them were women. Given that the average loan size under the scheme has been Rs 43,000, it doesn’t seem likely that the scheme has done much more than creating some self-employment opportunities for a section of women. While this is not something to be decried, in all probability it would be a case of underemployment at best. Most certainly a far cry from being a large job-creating engine that is supposed to have created innumerable women entrepreneurs.

As for the reduction in EPF contribution announced in the Budget, while there can be no complaints about a policy that allows women to retain a larger part of their salary in their hand for the first three years of their working life, it’s hardly going to be a strong enough reason for either more women to join the formal workforce or for employers to hire more of them.

If the objective was to increase women’s participation in the workforce, the policy is definitely not going to move the needle on this crucial metric for the country.

That the government has not done much more than pay lip service to policies that impact women is also visible in the allocations to crucial schemes like the Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana, a maternity benefit programme under the Food Security Act, which saw a decline this year, and the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao Scheme, which saw a marginal increase of just Rs 80 crore.

Apart from these gaps, just a cursory look at the overall gender Budget shows that the government’s commitment to women has been underwhelming at best. Spending on women declined as a proportion of the total Budget, falling from 5.2% in 2017-18 (RE) to 4.9% proposed for 2018-19, and allocations for the Ministry of Women and Child Development increased marginally from 0.88% of the total expenditure in the revised estimates of 2017-18 to 1% of the total projected expenditure for 2018-19.

However, it’s not just the numbers behind the headlines and tweets that are worrying, but it’s what this government’s fiscal policies really say to the women of the country that needs to be understood.

Historically, budgets and taxes have been viewed as a fundamental representation of a government’s vision and values. In fact, some ancient societies like the Greeks actually viewed taxation as an ethical issue. The way taxes were administered was a measure of how liberal the society was perceived to be, and societies were respected more for what they did not tax, rather than what they did.

Please click here to read more.

TheWire.in, 15 February, 2018, https://thewire.in/224058/budget-2018-will-women-really-better-off-end-fiscal/


Related Articles

 

Write Comments

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

Video Archives

Archives

share on Facebook
Twitter
RSS
Feedback
Read Later

Contact Form

Please enter security code
      Close