Gender budgeting in India: what the Gender Budget Statement shows

When a Budget headline says money has been allocated for women and girls, what exactly has been counted? Has that money already been spent, does it belong to one ministry, and does a larger figure mean that women are better off? India's Gender Budget Statement helps answer the first question. The others need evidence about spending and results.

For 2026-27, the statement reports Budget Estimates of ₹5,00,878.73 crore, or about ₹5.01 lakh crore. This adds up the reported provisions across schemes. It records allocations, rather than direct payments to individual women or improvements in their lives.

What gender budgeting asks

The Ministry of Women and Child Development describes gender budgeting as applying a gender perspective when policies, programmes and budgets are drawn up, put into practice and monitored. It covers revenue as well as expenditure. So the question goes beyond how much money a government sets aside. It also asks how policies are designed and what happens when they are put into practice.

The Department of Expenditure's Charter of Gender Budget Cells describes a way of examining the government budget, with no need for a separate budget for women. The Gender Budget Statement is one reporting document within that broader process. It reports provisions within the Union Budget, rather than adding an extra pot of money.

Where the statement sits

The Gender Budget Statement first appeared in the Union Budget for 2005-06. In the 2026-27 documents, it is Statement 13 in the Expenditure Profile. Its stated purpose is to show budget provisions under different schemes for the benefit of women and girls.

The current statement has three parts, though older explanations may mention only Parts A and B. As PIB's account of the framework explains, Part C was added in the Union Budget for 2024-25. When comparing years, check both the amounts and any changes in what the statement includes.

What Parts A, B and C count

The parts group schemes by the share of provision for women and girls. Their 2026-27 Budget Estimates are:

• Part A: schemes with 100 per cent provision for women and girls, totalling ₹1,07,688.42 crore.
• Part B: schemes with allocations for women and girls between 30 and 99 per cent, totalling ₹3,63,412.37 crore.
• Part C: schemes with allocations for women and girls below 30 per cent, totalling ₹29,777.94 crore.

These percentages describe allocations. Part A's 100 per cent tells us who the provision is for; whether every intended benefit reached women is a separate question. Part B covers a range of shares, rather than a fixed 30 per cent or the scheme's entire expenditure. Part C still records an allocation for women, below the threshold.

Two entries show how this works. Mission Shakti appears in Part A with ₹3,200 crore in the 2026-27 Budget Estimates column. PM POSHAN appears in Part B with ₹3,825 crore. The latter is the amount reported in the gender-budget table, not PM POSHAN's entire scheme budget. Keep that description when quoting the figure elsewhere.

Read the column before the number

All amounts in the statement are in rupees crore. Its columns run from Actuals for 2024-25 to Budget Estimates for 2025-26, Revised Estimates for 2025-26, and Budget Estimates for 2026-27. These headings tell you whether you are reading recorded expenditure or an estimate. Check the label before describing a figure as money already spent.

The grand totals show why this matters. For 2025-26, the statement records Budget Estimates of ₹4,49,028.68 crore and Revised Estimates of ₹3,97,884.98 crore. Both are estimates for the same financial year. To establish a final underspend or show that money was diverted, you would need evidence beyond the difference between these estimates.

The three parts together produce the 2026-27 total of about ₹5.01 lakh crore. In its release of 18 February 2026, the Ministry of Women and Child Development, through PIB, reports the gender-budget share of the Union Budget as 9.37 per cent, compared with 8.86 per cent in 2025-26. The percentage measures a share of the Union Budget, not of GDP or progress towards gender equality.

What the ministry and departments do

The Ministry of Women and Child Development is the central nodal ministry for gender budgeting. It coordinates a process that runs across ministries and departments, rather than administering or spending every allocation in the statement.

The ministry's revised guidelines set out the responsibilities of Gender Budget Cells within ministries and departments. These include analysing schemes from a gender perspective, connecting that work with outcome budgets, supporting performance audits and training, and coordinating with nodal authorities. Filling in the annual statement is only part of that work.

Since 2007-08, the ministry's Gender Budgeting Scheme has supported training and workshops through grants to government departments, training institutes and organisations. This date marks the start of the training scheme; the Gender Budget Statement began earlier. The scheme is also separate from the much larger total reported across government.

What the statement cannot establish

An allocation, its delivery and its outcome answer different questions. The Gender Budget Cells charter asks whether money was spent as planned, what was delivered, who received it and whether women's situation changed. Answering all these questions needs evidence beyond the statement. Better safety, employment, agency or equality must be shown through results, rather than inferred from a larger reported provision.

The table's scope matters too. It reports scheme provisions for women and girls. A full account of tax burdens, unpaid work or every gender inequality would require looking beyond it. This is a limit of the document's scope, rather than a measured finding about those issues. Gender budgeting as a broader process can examine revenue and outcomes too.

The share of the Union Budget outside the reported gender-budget total cannot simply be labelled money that benefits only men. The statement identifies reported provisions, rather than dividing every effect of government policy into two complete accounts.

How to use it in practice

When reading a claim about the gender budget, check the financial year, whether the figure is an estimate or an actual, and which part and scheme it comes from. Then ask separately about the allocation, its delivery and its results. These checks make the statement a useful starting point for examining a claim and deciding what the evidence supports.

For students who want to explore public-policy questions further, One Young India's programmes include PolicyForHer, a free policy competition for girls in Grades 9 to 12. The page also lists Model NITI Aayog for Grades 9 to 12, which involves investigating a policy question, weighing evidence and developing a white paper.