Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Interim Budget 2024, prioritising the needs of the impoverished, women, youth, and farmers as the highest priorities of the government.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday presented the Interim Budget 2024 in which she said that the needs of impoverished, women, youth, and farmers were the highest priorities of PM Narendra Modi-led BJP government.
“As our Prime Minister firmly believes, we need to focus on four major castes, they are gareeb (poor), mahilayein (women), yuva (youth), and annadata (farmers). Their needs, their aspirations, and their welfare are our highest priority,” Sitharaman while presenting her sixth Budget ahead of the Lok Sabha polls said.
Citing data on government schemes, FM Sitharaman explained how women have been empowered in the country in the past 10 years.
“The empowerment of women through entrepreneurship, ease of living, and dignity for them has gained momentum in these ten years”, Sitharaman said.
Sitharaman said that the Centre has given 30 crore Mudra Yojana loans to women entrepreneurs. Besides, female enrolment in higher education has gone up by 28% since 2014. In STEM courses, girls and women constitute 43% of enrolment – one of the highest in the world. And, over 17% of houses under PM Awas Yojana in rural areas were given to women as sole or joint owners, the finance minister said on Thursday.
“It is worth noting that the Finance Minister’s emphasis on women empowerment signifies a commendable step towards empowering them to prosper as entrepreneurs. Realizing the critical impact women have on the socio-economic landscape, this approach both contributes to gender equality and enables economic development by harnessing the tremendous potential that lies in women entrepreneurs,”
Lakhpati Didi
Further FM Sitharaman said that 83 lakh Self Help Groups (SHGs) with 9 crore women have transformed the rural socio-economic landscape with empowerment and self-reliance. “…once crore women became Lakhpati didi already,” she said.
Buoyed by the success, the finance minister said that the government has decided to enhance the target for Lakhpati Didi from 2 crore to 3 crore.
“The finance minister’s spotlight on empowering women financially by augmenting the goal for bank SHG loans under its ‘Lakhpati Didi’ scheme up to 3 crore is welcome. However, the crucial linkage seems missing between enabling rural women entrepreneurs via targeted credit and mainstreaming more urban working women across sectors. No doubt, providing hybrid funds through women SHGs has had multiplier community impacts for low-income families. Yet we cannot ignore India’s larger gender gap in workforce participation despite a young, educated female demographic dividend waiting to be tapped. Beyond microfinance schemes, we need more affordable childcare infrastructure, safe transport, flexible work setups, cracking unconscious biases in recruitment and growth – the obstacles that constrain women’s labor force potential even today. So while rural women self-help groups serve one purpose, the ground reality facing working women in cities persists very differently. The Budget could have connected the dots more cohesively between its SHG loan targets for rural women and the pronouncements on growing women’s workforce entry. Allocation for creches in Tier 1 cities, incentives linking women’s employment to industry tax rates, special upskilling programs are examples of what we expect to see more of in the final budget next year,” Ridhima Kansal, Director, Rosemoore told Mint.
Cervical Cancer Vaccination
FM Sitharaman promised that the government would encourage vaccination for girls in the age group of 9 to 14 years for the prevention of cervical cancer.
Maternal and child health care
“Various schemes for maternal and child care will be brought under one comprehensive programme for synergy in implementation,” FM Sitharaman said.
“The government has taken a steady approach towards its past policies such as increasing capital expenditure. The investments in research and development are much welcome as R&D requires cheap and patient capital and can transform India into a powerhouse of innovation. The continued focus on Nari Shakti is also evident with the increase in the allocation under the gender budget and acknowledgement of SHGs in driving women-led-development,”Aparajita Bharti, Co-Founder at TQH Consulting said.
Nirmala Sitharaman expressed hope that the good policies and the work done by the Modi government will help the BJP return to power for the third consecutive time in a row.
Article Credit: livemint