COVER HINDI - Ministry of Women and Child Development

Mainstreaming of gender concerns taken
with up with Ministries/ Departments
6.19 Gender concerns in sectors like Health and Education
are very apparent and are often focused upon in allocations
for gender component. However, what tends to be ignored
is gender concerns in mainstream sectors like Finance,
Energy, Transport, Industries, etc. Therefore, the Ministry
of Women and Child Development also lays emphasis on
gender mainstreaming as natural outcome of gender
budgeting in all sectors.
6.20 The Ministry has been making efforts to generate
awareness of the various important gender issues that have
a bearing on policy and implementation of all Government
programmes. A few of the gender concerns that the
Ministry has raised with various Ministries in Government
of India are highlighted below.
Ministry of Finance
— The importance of keeping a gender perspective
while rationalizing interest subsidy on account of
small savings, especially postal savings schemes like
National Savings Schemes was stressed.
— The need to conduct a gender sensitive review of
the micro credit facilities and streamline the
mechanisms to enable easy access of micro credit to
women SHGs and also prevent charging of
exploitative interest rates was emphasised.
— Including a column on gender outcomes in the
Outcome Budget of GOI.
— The need to conduct a gender sensitive review of
incidence of taxes, trade off between higher taxes
or lowering of subsidies, impact of inflation,
regulation of interest rates in micro credit sector,
and providing social security to women through
insurance schemes.
Ministry of Environment
— In order to promote innovative financing for
alternative sources energy for women, the Ministry
of Environment has been requested to guide
Departments like Non Conventional Energy and
Urban Employment and Poverty Alleviation in
availing Carbon Emission Reduction (CER) credits
under the Kyoto Protocol. This would give a major
boost to provision of clean cooking and lighting fuel
in rural and urban areas.
Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs
— Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs has been
addressed on the need for raising participation of
women in sports and according due recognition and
publicity to success stories involving women.
Ministry of Health and Family Welfare
— The subject of Health Insurance Scheme for women
in view of their vulnerabilities and barriers to access
to medical services has been raised with Ministry of
Health and Family Welfare
— More stringent implementation of the PC and PNDT
Act has been advised stressed with suggestions to
have more number of Appropriate Authorities, non
medical officer heading the Authority, more close
monitoring of USGs , especially mobile machines,
blacklisting errant doctors/ clinics , suspension of
their licenses etc.
— The need to reduce Maternal and Infant Mortality
rates, better immunization levels and increasing the
number of institutional deliveries was also taken up.
Planning Commission
— Engendering the State Plan and Annual Plan
discussions and insisting upon quantifiable outcomes
for women being reflected in state plans
Initiatives of Planning Commission for gender
budgeting and mainstreaming
• Advised all Central Ministries/Departments to have
a section on Gender Budgeting incorporated in the
Annual Plan- 2007-08 and the 11 th Five Year Plan.
They are required to provide details on the
following points : Gender Audit Policies of
Government; quantification of allocation of
resources for women; gender impact assessment
of various schemes; analysing programmes and
strategies in gender perspectives; mechanism for
generation and collection of gender disaggregated
data
• States have also been instructed to include gender
budgeting in the planning process and engender
the State Plans
106 Annual Report 2006-07