The Union Budget 2024-25 presented in Parliament today by Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman, Union Minister for Finance & Corporate Affairs strongly signalled Government’s commitment for enhancing women’s role in economic development. 

The Union Finance Minister announced an allocation of more than Rs. 3 lakh crore for schemes benefitting women and girls. This is envisaged as a measure to promote women-led development, she elaborated.

She recalled the focus on ‘Mahilayen’ (Women) in the Interim Budget, which was part of the four major castes, namely ‘Garib’ (Poor), ‘Mahilayen’ (Women), ‘Yuva’ (Youth) and ‘Annadata’ (Farmer), again in the Union Budget 2024-25 and stated, “We are determined to ensure that all Indians, regardless of religion, caste, gender and age, make substantial progress in realising their life goals and aspirations”.

The Union Minister informed that the Government will facilitate higher participation of women in the workforce through setting up of working women hostels in collaboration with industry, and establishing creches. In addition, the partnership will seek to organize women-specific skilling programmes, and promotion of market access for women SHG enterprises, Smt. Sitharaman announced.

Women's economic empowerment advanced through enhanced budget allocation, industry-collaborative hostels and creches supporting workforce participation. The Budget commits substantial budgetary resources to women's economic empowerment and identifies operational measures to increase female workforce participation, including industry-collaborative working women hostels, creches, women-specific skilling programmes, and market access support for women's self-help group enterprises, using public-private partnership modalities to translate allocation into participation and enterprise development.