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UNION BUDGET 2020 HIGHLIGHS FOR WOMEN EMPOWERMENT

UNION BUDGET 2020 HIGHLIGHS FOR WOMEN EMPOWERMENT

The union budget was presented on 1st Feb 2020 by the Union Finance Minister N. Sitharaman. The FM in her speech said that this budget will be for every woman wanting to stand up being counted.

In recent time, women safety issues and need for women empowerment has been a raging topic and the need to address these topics have been the need of the hour.

The Finance Minister had a separate section while presenting her parliamentary speech on a budget where she mentioned new schemes for women and how the previous schemes have helped the women in society.

In her speech, N. Sitharaman mentioned that this budget was the one every woman was waiting for and for every woman wanting to stand up being counted.
This budget included:

•    Inclusive approaches to agriculture, health, digital India that will ensure women are part of the growth story in India.

•    Women SHGs will now be able to avail MUDRA and NABARD assistance in agriculture. The FM stated in her speech that “the women in the villages would keep the seed in the village and now it’s time for them to once again become Daanya Lakshmis”. There was also an announcement by the FM that women will be able to a loan of up to Rs 1,00,000 under the Mudra scheme.

•    In a boost for women SHGs, Sitharaman announced the expansion of the interest subvention program to all districts. Every woman SHG member will get an overdraft facility of Rs 5,000 who is currently holding a verified Jan Dhan account.

In her Budget speech, she also mentioned that the gross enrolment ratio of girls across all levels of education is higher than boys.

•    It is 94.32% for girls against 89.28% for boys at the elementary level; 

•    Whereas in higher secondary girls are more than 59% while boys are at 57%

FM also announced that more hospitals, health care infrastructure will be set up in new districts. She also stated in her speech that the government will work on eradicating Tuberculosis from India by the year 2025.  

In her speech, she mentioned that poshan abhiyaan which was introduced in 2017-18 have helped pregnant women, lactating mothers and others are benefiting from the scheme. More than 6,00,000 Anganwadi workers are now equipped with smartphones to share the status of health in their areas of monitoring.

Incentives were also announced for women in beekeeping.

Sitharaman proposed to introduce a task force to study the marriageable age of women in the country. Earlier, women’s age of marriage was increased from 15 years to 18 years in 1978 by amendment in the Sharda Act. of 1929

BUDGET ALLOCATION

There has been an increase in the percent of money allotted by the government for the benefit of women. 

The spending includes

•    Rs 891.23 crore have been set aside for the scheme which was initiated for the safety of women (Nirbhaya fund). 

•    Rs 2,500 crore have been further allotted for the ‘Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana’, which accounts for Anganwadi services. 

•    35,600 crore are also to be allotted for all the nutrition-related programmes.

CONCLUSION

As India progresses further, a lot of opportunities have opened up for women to embrace them. There has been an increase of 21.4 percent in the budget allotted for women with respect to FY 19. Women through these schemes will be benefitted in a lot of ways and will be able to stand out.

Author:

eStartIndia Team



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