Jammu: Describing "Gender Budgeting" an
effective tool for empowerment of women, the Minister for
Finance A R Rather on Saturday said that increasing awareness about
removal of gender-inequity in the civilized world had made it
imperative to ensure equal sharing of economic progress by
women and girls.
Speaking at the inaugural session of 2-day training-cum-
workshop on "Gender Budgeting", the Minister called upon the
planners and budget formulators to put women`s concerns and
their special needs at the centre stage during the budget
making process and policy formulation to make budgeting more
gender responsive.
"This way we can reduce the gaps in socio-economic
progress between men and women", Rather said.
The workshop has been organized by the Jammu and Kashmir
State Commission for Women (JKSCW) and sponsored by the Union
Ministry of Women and Child Development, with an objective to
inculcate gender sensitivity among public servants while
formulating policies and programmes of respective government
departments.
This was the 4th training-cum-workshop in the state
organized by JKSCW and such programmes would be organized in
all districts of the state starting from today.
The Minister said that though gender gap had shown clear
signs of decline, a lot more remained to be done if the
special needs for women and girls were to be fully catered
to.
"Equal rights guaranteed under the constitution have
to be fully ensured for them in letter and spirit and position
of dignity and respect at par with their male counterparts has
to be carved out for them", he said.
The government has initiated several measures towards
women empowerment, he said, adding that Rs 10 crore have been
kept at the disposal of women development corporation for
generating job avenues for women through self-employment
ventures.
Creation of separate women development corporation and
state women commission are major initiatives taken by the
government for empowerment of women, he said, adding that the
coalition government headed by the Chief Minister Omar
Abdullah has recently enacted a landmark law for protection of
women from domestic violence.
Maintaining that education is the basic tool for socio
economic transformation, Rather said the government had opened
a large number of Government Girls Schools and separate
colleges and ITIs for girl students.
He said that many women specific programmes were under
implementation through NHRM and MNREGA to gradually induce
transfer of socio-economic authority to women.
PTI
