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India's Gender Budget Statement — Two Decades of Gender-Responsive Budgeting Across the Union Government

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Evidence: Observational / pre–post Top 61% 56/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Since FY2005-06, India's Union Budget has published a Gender Budget Statement classifying spending by share benefiting women. It reached 8.86% of the budget in FY2025-26, though independent analysis finds allocations concentrated in few schemes and unevenly spent.

49 ministries/departments
Reporting ministries/departments, FY2025-26 (FY2025-26)
5.3 %
Gender budget share of Union Budget, FY2023-24 (FY2023-24)
6.8 %
Gender budget share of Union Budget, FY2024-25 (FY2024-25)
8.86 %
Gender budget share of Union Budget, FY2025-26 (FY2025-26)
51.9 %
PMAY-G share of Part A spending (FY2025-26)
33.6% credited vs. 59.3% of person-days %
Share of MGNREGS budget credited as benefiting women vs. women's share of person-days worked (FY2025-26)
India's Gender Budget Statement — Two Decades of Gender-Responsive Budgeting Across the Union Government

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
Ministry of Finance, Government of India
Period
2005–present
Keywords
public finance, gender budgeting, fiscal policy, government

Context

India's Ministry of Finance directed all central ministries and departments to set up Gender Budgeting Cells by January 2005, and introduced the first Gender Budget Statement (GBS) with the Union Budget for FY2005-06.

Objectives

Published annually as part of the Expenditure Profile, the GBS classifies scheme-level allocations into Part A (schemes with 100% of outlay benefiting women and girls), Part B (schemes with 30-99% benefiting women), and, more recently, Part C (schemes with under 30% benefiting women).

Activities

The exercise has grown from around nine reporting ministries in its first year to 49 Ministries/Departments and 5 Union Territories in FY2025-26.

Results

The gender budget itself rose from 5.3% of the Union Budget in FY2023-24, to 6.8% (Rs 3.27 lakh crore, roughly 1.0% of GDP) in FY2024-25, to 8.86% (Rs 4.49 lakh crore, about 1.38% of GDP) in FY2025-26 -- a 37.5% year-on-year increase and the highest share of GDP since the statement began.

Conclusions

Independent analysis tempers the headline growth: Policy Circle found the rural housing scheme PMAY-G alone accounted for 51.9% of Part A spending, and Drishti IAS notes that MGNREGS credits only 33.6% of its budget as benefiting women even though women perform 59.3% of the person-days of work under it, evidence that the accounting methodology itself under- and over-counts different schemes.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Very high (> €5M) — Gender budget reached Rs 4.49 lakh crore (about 1.38% of GDP) in FY2025-26, up 37.5% year-on-year.
Time to results
Long (> 3 years) — Annual Gender Budget Statement since FY2005-06, expanded from around nine reporting ministries to 49 Ministries/Departments plus 5 Union Territories by FY2025-26.
Staffing & skills
Gender Budgeting Cells set up in every central ministry and department by January 2005.

Conditions for success

  • Methodology documented and compared across the union government and nine states by UN Women/ADB, cited by the IMF as a reference model for other Asian countries.

Common failure modes

  • PMAY-G alone accounted for 51.9% of Part A spending, meaning the 'gender budget' is heavily concentrated in one programme.
  • The Nirbhaya Fund for women's safety remains chronically underspent.
  • MGNREGS credits only 33.6% of its budget as benefiting women even though women perform 59.3% of person-days of work under it.
  • NIPFP's own lead researcher, Lekha Chakraborty, cautions that higher allocations do not by themselves guarantee higher or more effective spending.

Where it fits

Governance type
union government budget mechanism
Scale
national (union government plus 9 states compared)
Income level
lower-middle-income

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes

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Data sources

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Attachments

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