Gender budgeting

Topic: Government Budget, Fiscal Policy and FRBM · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 5 "Government Budget and the Economy"

Meaning

Gender budgeting means turning the government's promises on gender equality into actual money in the budget, and then checking how public spending affects women.

• It is not a separate budget for women. It is a way of reading the whole budget with a question in mind: "How much of this money reaches women, and what does it change for them?"
• It matters because equal laws alone do not help women if schools, health, jobs and housing are not paid for.

Formula: GBS share = (GBS allocation ÷ Total Union expenditure) × 100

Explanation

How it works

• In India, the main tool is the Gender Budget Statement (GBS). This is a document presented with the Union Budget.
• Each reporting Ministry or Department lists its schemes and shows how much of each scheme's money is meant for women.
• The logic:
• Money is first tagged as benefiting women.
• The tagged amounts are added up across ministries.

• The total is compared with total Union spending to get the GBS share.

• Gender budgeting has two parts:

• Before spending: plan allocations with women's needs in mind.
• After spending: examine the real impact on women. This links it to outcome budgeting, which measures the real change a scheme makes, not just the money spent.

The three parts of the GBS

Part	What it covers	Example type
Part A	Schemes that are 100% women-specific	Schemes only for women and girls
Part B	Schemes where 30-99% of the money is for women	Mixed schemes such as housing and rural jobs
Part C	Schemes where less than 30% is for women (added in 2024-25)	General schemes with a small share for women

• Pattern: most of the money sits in Part B. Schemes only for women (Part A) make up about a fifth of the total.
• 2026-27: Part A was 21.50%, Part B 72.54% and Part C 5.95% of the GBS [3].

Worked example

• 2025-26: the GBS allocation was ₹4.49 lakh crore, which was 8.86% of the Union Budget [2].
• Working backwards from the formula:
• Total expenditure = GBS allocation ÷ GBS share
• = 4.49 ÷ 0.0886
• ≈ ₹50.7 lakh crore

What makes the GBS share rise or fall

• Real new money for women-focused schemes raises the share.
• Wider reporting also raises it. When more ministries report, or a new category such as Part C is added, more schemes are counted.

• 38 Ministries/Departments reported in 2024-25, 49 in 2025-26 [2] and 53 in 2026-27 [3].

• So read the headline number with care. A higher share can mean more spending on women, or only that more existing spending is being counted.

In India

• Start: the Gender Budget Statement first appeared in the 2005-06 Union Budget. It was enlarged in 2006-07 (NCERT, Class 12).
• Who does it: Ministries/Departments and UTs report their allocations for women. The GBS is published as part of the Union Budget documents. The Ministry of Women and Child Development is the nodal ministry, meaning it leads and coordinates the work across ministries.
• Trend in the GBS share:

Year	GBS allocation	Share of Union Budget	Reporting bodies
2024-25	—	6.8%	38 Ministries/Departments + 5 UTs
2025-26	₹4.49 lakh crore	8.86%	49 Ministries/Departments + 5 UTs
2026-27	₹5.01 lakh crore	9.37%	53 Ministries/Departments + 5 UTs

• The GBS share was 6.8% in 2024-25 and rose to 8.86% in 2025-26 [2].
• 2025-26 break-up: Part A was ₹1,05,535.40 crore (23.50%), Part B ₹3,26,672 crore (72.75%) and Part C ₹16,821.28 crore (3.75%) [2].
• 2026-27 (latest): the GBS allocation was ₹5.01 lakh crore, up 11.55% from 2025-26, and 9.37% of the Union Budget [3].
• 2026-27 break-up: Part A was ₹1,07,688.42 crore, Part B ₹3,63,412.37 crore and Part C ₹29,777.94 crore [3].
• The 53 Ministries/Departments and 5 UTs reporting in 2026-27 were the highest number since the GBS began [3].

Don't confuse with

• Outcome budget: it also began in 2005-06, which makes it a common exam trap. An outcome budget links every ministry's spending to outputs and outcomes. Gender budgeting looks only at how spending affects women.
• Green budgeting: it tags spending by its environmental and climate impact. It was first led by states (Odisha and Bihar from 2020-21), not by a Union statement from 2005-06.
• Part A vs the whole GBS: the GBS total is not "money spent only on women". Only Part A is 100% women-specific. Most of the total is Part B, where schemes are shared with men.
• Participatory budgeting: here citizens decide part of a budget, as in Porto Alegre (1989) and Kerala's People's Plan Campaign (1996). Gender budgeting is done by the government inside its own budget.

Prelims Hooks

• India's Gender Budget Statement began in 2005-06 and was enlarged in 2006-07. Outcome budgets also started in 2005-06.
• GBS parts: Part A = 100% for women. Part B = 30-99%. Part C = less than 30%, added in 2024-25.
• 2026-27: the GBS allocation was ₹5.01 lakh crore, or 9.37% of the Union Budget [3].
• Part B is the largest part, at 72.54% of the GBS in 2026-27 [3]. Part A is only about a fifth.
• Trap: gender budgeting is not a separate budget for women. It is an analysis of the whole budget through a gender lens.
• The record 53 Ministries/Departments and 5 UTs reported in 2026-27 [3].

Mains Points

• Quantity vs quality of allocation:
• The GBS share has risen from 6.8% (2024-25) to 8.86% (2025-26) [2] and 9.37% (2026-27) [3].
• But most of the money is in Part B, and Part C counts schemes where less than 30% goes to women.

• Part of the rise may come from wider reporting rather than new money. This weakens the precision of the tagging.

• From allocation to outcome:

• Gender budgeting should move from "how much was allocated" to "what changed for women".
• Useful outcome measures include girls' learning levels, maternal health and women's employment.

• Linking the GBS to outcome budgeting and sex-disaggregated data (data split by men and women) would make it more useful.

• Link to welfare design:

• Some states run unconditional cash schemes for women (quasi-UBI, meaning cash for one group rather than for everyone).
• Merit spending, such as nutrition and girls' schooling, builds human capital and should not be called "freebies".
• Any such spending must still respect FRBM limits and protect capital spending.

Related concepts

• Subsidy
• Cash transfers
• Targeting errors
• JAM trinity
• Universal Basic Income
• Freebies
• Performance budget
• Outcome budget
• Zero-based budgeting
• Green budgeting

Read more

• Spending better: subsidies, DBT and budgeting innovations