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As India steps into the fiscal year 2025-2026, it also celebrates two decades of gender budgeting. In her Budget address, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman laid out a vision that places women at the heart of India’s growth story. With a clear focus on empowering youth, farmers, and women, this year’s Budget aligns with the broader goal of a Viksit Bharat by 2047, with ‘women-led development’ as a cornerstone of this transformation. One of the most ambitious targets set in this Budget is the integration of 70 percent of women into the workforce. But how well does the 2025-26 gender budget live up to these lofty goals? This piece dives deep into the budget's allocations, exploring how they align with and advance the vision of women-led development, with a sharp focus on key areas like employment, education, health and well-being, and safety and security.
Employment
agricultural schemes like the Krishonnati Yojana (with an allocation of INR 2,550 crore for 2025-26) remain under Part B of the gender budget without dedicated provisions for women farmers.
This year’s gender budget introduces a significant initiative aimed at empowering first-time entrepreneurs, including women, with term loans up to INR 2 crore over the next five years. Women’s workforce participation continues to be a pressing issue and a key priority in every budget. The Female Labor Force Participation Rate (FLFPR) showed a slight increase to 41.7 percent in 2023-24. While initiatives like the PM Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP) are designed to support entrepreneurship, the funding for PMEGP has decreased from INR 1,012.50 crore in 2024-25 to INR 862.50 crore in 2025-26. In terms of rural employment, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), which provides 57.8 percent of person-days worked by women, received INR 40,000 crore, an increase from INR 37,654 crore in 2024-25. However, only 33.6 percent of this allocation is reflected in the gender budget, which raises concerns about the full recognition of women’s contributions in gender-responsive budgeting. Furthermore, 80 percent of women are involved in agriculture, but only 13.9 percent of landowners are women. Despite this, agricultural schemes like the Krishonnati Yojana (with an allocation of INR 2,550 crore for 2025-26) remain under Part B of the gender budget without dedicated provisions for women farmers.
Education
The increase of PM Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman (PM POSHAN) from the two previous years is also a win.
Education is key to unlocking women's economic empowerment. While India has made progress in closing gender gaps in primary and secondary education, the dropout rates are wider in higher education. For instance, women make up over 40 percent of STEM graduates, but only 14 percent are employed in STEM roles, reflecting a ‘leaky pipeline’. The 2025-26 Budget addresses the gender digital divide through the National Mission on Education through ICT (NMEICT) under Part A, which allocates 100 percent of funding for women. However, funding for this scheme has decreased from INR 551.25 crore in 2024-25 to INR 229.25 crore, raising concerns about resources for bridging the digital gender gap. On the other hand, Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan received an increase to INR 12,375 crore, and the PM SHRI Schools scheme saw a significant boost to INR 2,250 crore, signalling improvements in the quality of education and school infrastructure. The increase of PM Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman (PM POSHAN) from the two previous years is also a win.
Housing
Housing continues to receive the lion’s share in this year’s gender budget. The PMAY-Urban saw its allocation rise from INR 15,170 crore in 2024-25 to INR 23,294 crore, while PMAY-Urban 2.0 increased from INR 1,500 crore to INR 3,500 crore. In addition, the PMAY-G (Rural Housing) allocation rose from INR 32,500 crore to INR 54,832 crore. Despite this substantial increase, only 73% of PMAY-G houses are registered in women’s names, raising concerns about the extent to which these funds are genuinely empowering women. Moreover, the shift of PMAY-Urban from Part B to Part A in previous years artificially inflated gender budget figures without a corresponding increase in women-specific spending. While the funding boost is a positive development, the lack of clarity and misalignment between funding and outcomes suggests a need for a more focused, women-centred approach to ensure these resources drive real change.
Health
Anganwadi workers are grossly underpaid. This underfunding highlights the ongoing neglect of women’s health needs and the urgent need for targeted investment.
Health is a critical indicator of women-led development, and this year's budget reflects incremental progress in key areas. The Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0 schemes have slid back to their 2023-24 allocation of INR 450.98 crore, which, however, is an improvement of the previous years INR 220 crore. Notably, Ayushman Bharat - Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY) saw an increase from INR 3,624.80 crore to INR 4,482.90 crore. However, this allocation is included in Part B of the gender budget, which mandates at least 30 percent of provisions for women, raising questions about its actual impact on women's health. Similarly, the Menstrual Hygiene Scheme (MHS) under the National Health Mission, a concern unique to women, is also placed in Part B, suggesting that only 30 percent of its funding is directed toward women—a critical misalignment. The Matru Vandana Yojana, offering INR 6,000 per mother, has remained unchanged since 2013, failing to adjust for inflation. Lastly, Anganwadi workers are grossly underpaid. This underfunding highlights the ongoing neglect of women’s health needs and the urgent need for targeted investment.
Safety and security
Women’s safety and security are vital to true empowerment, but budget allocations still reveal significant gaps. The Nirbhaya Fund, which supports fast-track courts, crisis centers, and surveillance, received a small increase—from INR 180 crore to INR 200 crore in 2025-26. However, nearly 74 percent of the INR 7,212 crore allocated since its inception remains unspent, raising questions about its effective use. Mission Shakti, launched in April 2024, addresses women’s safety and empowerment through two verticals: Sambal for safety (One Stop Centres, Women Helpline, etc.) and Samarthya for empowerment (Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana, SANKALP, etc.). While Samarthya saw a significant funding increase from INR 953.74 crore to INR 2,396 crore, ‘Sambal’, saw an increase, but was the same allocation as in 2023-24, remaining at INR 629 crore. A major oversight remains the lack of investment in gender-sensitive public transportation, which 91 percent of urban women find unsafe and unreliable, limiting their access to employment.
Paving the way for gender-responsive budgeting
To increase women’s workforce participation, we must focus on developing human capital. This can be achieved by boosting investments in health, education, and skill development while reducing unnecessary spending on inflated housing subsidies
Despite the government's annual promises and large budget allocations, real progress often falls short. To make these numbers meaningful, significant actions must accompany them.
A critical step toward ensuring real impact would be the implementation of the Gender Budgeting Act, as recommended by NITI Aayog. This Act would institutionalise gender-based budgeting across all Ministries and States/UTs, while also mandating the collection and publication of gender-disaggregated data - a crucial gap in tracking progress.
To increase women’s workforce participation, we must focus on developing human capital. This can be achieved by boosting investments in health, education, and skill development while reducing unnecessary spending on inflated housing subsidies. Moreover, addressing the unpaid care burden, which accounts for 15 percent-17 percent of India’s GDP, should be prioritised through paid leave policies, care service subsidies, and skill-building for caregivers.
Lastly, with the intensifying impacts of climate change, women, particularly in agriculture and natural resource management, are on the frontlines. Studies show that women are disproportionately affected by heatwaves and other climate-related crises. Therefore, gender budgeting must be updated to ensure it is truly inclusive, addressing both the immediate and long-term needs of women in all sectors.
Sharon Sarah Thawaney is the Executive Assistant to the Director at the Observer Research Foundation, Kolkata
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