What happened: Charter for Gender Budget Cells and reported progress on gender budgeting
The Ministry of Women and Child Development reported that the Department of Expenditure, Ministry of Finance issued the Charter of Gender Budget Cells. The Charter provides guidelines for constituting, structuring, and operating Gender Budget Cells (GBCs) in all Ministries/Departments. Gender Budget Cells are intended to help Ministries/Departments analyse and adjust policies and programmes to address gender imbalances and to ensure that public resources are allocated and managed in line with gender equality and development goals.
The Charter designates Gender Budget Cells as the focal unit for coordinating Gender Budgeting initiatives within a Ministry/Department. The Charter also sets out functional expectations such as identifying programmes for gender analysis, organising stakeholder discussions to exchange ideas and obtain feedback on programme effectiveness, and conducting performance audits to review physical and financial targets of programmes.
According to government-reported information, Gender Budget Cells have been set up in 62 Central Ministries/Departments and 35 State/UTs. The Ministry of Women and Child Development provides capacity building and technical support to Central Ministries/Departments and to States/UTs to advance gender budgeting processes. The Ministry also provides financial support to training institutes to train government officials on Gender Budgeting.
Gender Budget provisions are implemented by Ministries/Departments/UTs either directly or through implementing agencies, along with periodic monitoring of progress against scheme and programme objectives. Ministries/Departments report data in the Output-Outcome Monitoring Framework (OOMF) and some schemes include gender-related indicators. Progress on gender-related indicators is also assessed through national sample surveys such as the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) and the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS).
On annual budgeting, the Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance issues a Budget Circular each year mandating Ministries/Departments to report allocations for women and girls in the Gender Budget Statement in a prescribed format. Gender budget allocations are compiled as Statement 13 of the Expenditure Profile of the Union Budget. For FY 2026-27, an allocation of Rs. 5.01 lakh crore is reported for the welfare of women and girls in the Gender Budget Statement. This allocation is reported as an 11.55% increase over the FY 2025-26 allocation of Rs. 4.49 lakh crore.