India Budget 2024: Modi 3.0 announces spate of women-centric schemes; Mayawati calls it a 'disappointment'
India Budget 2024: Modi 3.0 announces spate of women-centric schemes; Mayawati calls it a 'dissapointment'
India's budget for 2024-25 has a special focus on women-led development. On Tuesday (Jul23), Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that the BJP-led coalition government has come up with more than Rs 3 lakh crore for schemes benefiting women and girls.
These schemes are targeted at increasing women's participation in the workforce.
"Increasing the participation of women in the workforce will be a priority," said Sitharaman.
"This will be facilitated by setting up hostels and creating partnerships to organise women-specific skilling programmes and promotion of market access for women Self Help Group enterprises," she added.
"We need to focus on the poor, women, youth, and farmers."
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With this, the allocation for women's welfare and empowerment has undergone a 218.8 per cent jump between FY14 to FY25.
"The growth is indicative of India's determination to shift from women-led development to women's development, as stated in the Economic Survey 2023–2024," said the finance minister.
Stamp duty rebates
Sitharaman also said that the central government is encouraging the states to lower charges forhigh stamp duties,especially for women.
"We will encourage states which continue to charge high stamp duty to moderate the rates for all, and also consider further lowering duties for properties purchased by women. This reform will be made an essential component of urban development schemes,"said Sitharaman.
Mayawati says budget neglects women
Even as the government touted the benefits for women, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati slammed the financial bill as a "disappointment" for the poor, unemployed, farmers, women, marginalised and neglected 'bahujans' (communities) of the country.
"The Union Budget presented in Parliament today follows the same old pattern, where except for a handful of rich and wealthy people, it offers little hope of good days for the country's poor, unemployed, farmers, women, labourers, marginalised and neglected communities and is more full of disappointment for them," she said in a Hindi language post on X.
(With inputs from agencies)
