In her maiden speech as the Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman made a statement that ‘Naari tu Narayani’ is our country’s tradition and later a committee with the same name has been formed to ensure optimal allocations of resources for the welfare of women.
In 2020, Mrs. Sitharaman announced that women self-help groups (SHGs) in villages—the Daanyalakshmis (seed distributors)—will be ably supported by the government’s Mudra schemes and NABARD. Besides, she highlighted the success of the government’s Beti Bachao, Beti Padao campaign and allocated a total of Rs 28,600 crore for women-specific schemes for the financial year 2020-21.
In 2021, the Finance Minister, proposed to reduce the margin money requirement from 25% to 15% and included loans for activities allied to agriculture under the Stand Up India scheme for SCs, STs, and women to further facilitate credit flow. “Naari Shakti is the harbinger of our bright future,” Sitharaman remarked last year.
The areas where women want the focus of Mrs. Sitharaman are:
- The Budget must make provisions for better access to education, healthcare and safety for women in addition to the several schemes that the government is already running, such as the Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao and the National Rural Livelihood Mission. Increased funding for these programmes could help improve their implementation and reach.
- Strong educational opportunities and support must be provided to women in sectors such as STEM, etc. other than the traditional women-dominated sectors to widen their horizons and enhance opportunities.
- Women-specific fiscal incentives could include tax reliefs on the purchase of assets such as property, vehicles. This will encourage them to own more assets thereby enhancing their economic independence.
- Women-centric preferential schemes for housing, personal, vehicle and business loans will prove to be a massive boost to the economy.
- Single women parent tax payers need to be given a separate deduction/exemption to increase their disposable income
- Schemes for pregnant women and new mothers should be given more focus with greater financial support from the government and should include expanding the reach of programmes like the Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana. Furthermore, the government can look at better access to affordable childcare — one of the biggest barriers to women’s long-term employment.
- To enable better access to loans and subsidized credit for women-owned businesses – along with tax exemptions and seed capital grants for women entrepreneurs.
- The Budget can help provide interest-free loans, working capital, and incentives for women-led startups and MSMEs.
- The Budget should have more support for mental health than a Rs 40 crore allocation, which has remained unchanged in the past couple of years.
“Empowerment is the process of increasing the capacity of individuals or groups to make choices and to transform those choices into desired actions and outcomes. Empowerment is a process. Through the process, an individual becomes an agent of change. More simply put, it’s the “can-do” factor, going from “I can’t” to “I can.” A proper allocation of funds in all fields is the need of the hour to give equal opportunities to women, as various work fields are led by patriarchal culture.
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