The allocation in 2016-17 for the welfare of women was Rs90,624.76 crore, which is 4.5 % of government spending. Photo: Priyanka Parashar/MintNew Delhi: Budgetary allocation for women, who constitute 48.5% of India’s population, is 5.2% of the total government spending. Instead of security and safety and CCTVs, the focus is about the need to skill and make women in rural India digitally literate. This, he said, will provide one stop convergent support services for empowering rural women with opportunities for skill development, employment, digital literacy, health and nutrition. “The overall increased allocation to social security schemes like MGNREGA will obviously benefit women, but gender should be a hard budget constraint.

Source: Mint February 01, 2017 22:26 UTC