Budget 2022: Entrepreneurs seek more opportunities for women, focus on menstrual hygiene

New Delhi: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the Union Budget on February 1, 2022. Entrepreneurs are hoping the minister, with the upcoming budget, to provide more job and education opportunities for women and to stress more focus on menstrual hygiene. 

Anika Parashar, Founder and CEO, The Woman Company said, "The Union Budget should emphasise on Women wellness - especially menstrual hygiene. We already have tax exemption on sanitary pads, however, this could be extended to manufacturing and production.” 

“Further, decreasing import duties for raw materials could bridge the gap between supply and demand as well encourage more Indian manufacturers to start manufacturing biodegradable pads in the country. There should be policy level incentivisation for Made In India products, start-ups helmed by women and ventures that focus on sustainability and solving for women's issues. The Government should promote the use of biodegradable menstrual products to bring down waste produced by plastic products – a figure which currently stands at a staggering 12.3 billion annually. We also expect the government to improve digital infrastructure in Tier II, III cities, and rural regions so that the next group of consumers can enter the D2C ecosystem," Parashar said. 

Harry Sehrawat, Co-Founder, Sanfe, also pointed out that the Union budget should emphasize women being more open about menstrual hygiene and issues as digital media takes the world by storm. 

“With soaring environmental issues, many consumers are looking at eco-friendly alternatives to lessen the potential damage to the environmental climate. We hope that the government will begin their support towards the encouragement of using biodegradable products which will be highly conducive to the reduction of plastic waste in our country. Apart from the exemption of taxes on sanitary pads, changes implemented for import duties would be very beneficial to the expansion and speedy production of these biodegradable products which are possibly the way of the future and will definitely help the menstruating population of the rural regions as well as the economically backward sections of our country,” Sehrawat added. 

Poshak Agrawal, Co-founder & CEO, Florence Capital (an Ethical Lending platform designed exclusively only for women), said the Union Budget for 2022-23 will be crucial for women as they have suffered disproportionately due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Agrawal noted that the government’s latest Periodic Labour Force Survey shows the unemployment rate for women was 11.8% in Jan-Mar 2021 - even before the second wave of the pandemic hit – as compared to 10.5% in Jan-Mar 2020. The pandemic has forced more and more women to move to casual labor – 9.3% in Jan-Mar 2021 as against 7.7% in Jan-Mar 2020. Also Read: 7th Pay Commission: Will govt employees get 18 months of DA arrears? Check latest update

“So, the Budget needs to not just reverse this trend but create the ground for better formal sector job opportunities for women. This requires work from the ground up, including higher capital expenditure on education and health – issues that are key for women. A recent paper by the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy found that the gender budgeting for the 2021-22 Union Budget was only about 5% of the total budget. We hope that the Budget for 2022-23 will prioritize spending on gender budgeting to help reduce inequalities. We are hopeful that 2022-23 will be a year of greater financial inclusion and easier access to credit for more Indians at a personal and enterprise level. We welcome the changes at the top level from the Government and sector-specific regulators,” Agrawal said. Also Read: Google smartwatch could launch in May, will rival Apple, Samsung watches