Gender Budget Statement to play pivotal role in ensuring gender equity to women
Himachal Pradesh has made a significant progress in social and economic upliftment of women in the state, making Himachal one of the best performing state in gender equality. To further provide impetus on women empowerment, the state government is emphasising on gender mainstreaming. To achieve this objective, the state government has made a provision of Gender Budget Statement (GBS) in Budget 2022-23.
The state government is committed towards upliftment of women in state by ensuring gender equity to women facing traditional and social disadvantages by successful implementation of Gender Budget Statement. Gender Budget Statement is a tool of Gender Responsive Budget which aims to ensure gender equitable distribution of resources.
The state government with effective implementation of Gender Budget Statement aims to analyse differential impact of policies, programmes and schemes of state government for women. Along-with mainstreaming gender, the GBS would ensure optimum budgetary resources for women's welfare and evaluating the effectiveness of gender based budgeting.
Gender Budgeting is an exercise to bridge the gender gap and providing equal opportunities to all and involvement of every department plays a vital role in bridging the gap. To ensure effective implementation of Gender Budget Statement, the Gender Budget Cells (GBC) were constituted in various departments. Gender Budget Cell is an institutional mechanism which would facilitate the integration of gender analysis into the Government budget, to tackle gender imbalances and promote gender equality.
To initiate an integrated approach and guide the Gender Budget Cells (GBCs) set-up by departments, the state government is organising workshops and training through HP Institute of Public Admistration, State Department of Women & Child Development and United Nation Women India in partnership with Ministry of Women & Child Development GoI. Workshops, training modules, materials and information booklets for gender budgeting are being provided to stake holders to provide assistance, so that successful implementation of Gender Budget Statement is ensured.
The vision of state government to implement Gender Budget Statement would ensure that the requisite funds for development and upliftment of women and girls are delivered to them. GBS would monitor the financial performance and physical deliverables of various departments and assess whether the money was spent as planned. The GBS would prove beneficial in assessing the adequacy of budget allocations in effective implementation of the gender sensitive policies and programmes and further enhancing gender equality situation in Himachal Pradesh.