TN government’s outcome-based gender budget is demanded by women’s organizations

In a joint statement, women’s organizations and groups encouraged the Tamil Nadu government to give gender budgeting in the state top priority by implementing an intersectional, participative, decentralized, and outcome-based approach.

They also requested that the state government consider the opinions of women while creating the budget, paying special attention to the needs of marginalized women. The statement also demanded that the gender budget cell, along with the state planning commission, provide a “status report of marginalized women in Tamil Nadu 2024.”

“The Tamil Nadu state strategy for women 2021 has committed to provide yearly disaggregated statistics and concentrating on inter-sectional women. The union government’s 2015 gender budgeting guidebook states that analyzing women’s circumstances is the first stage in the gender budgeting process.

The women’s group also asked the Department of Planning and Development to have pre-budget gender talks with female activists so that women may voice their opinions on different plans and make gender budgeting participatory.

The organizations also asked the Department of Finance to issue a government order establishing gender budgeting at the district, municipality, and panchayat levels.

In addition, the statement promoted gender budgeting using an outcome-based approach, with a special emphasis on women in agriculture.

They suggested policies that would acknowledge women as farmers, create a land bank run by the government, encourage biodiverse and climate-resilient farming, raise the pay of rural farm laborers, and expand job prospects in rural areas. Over 80 activists have so far signed the declaration.