This was a significant step, especially since this year has been officially proclaimed as Women's Empowerment Year. Much was expected from the budget by way of spotlighting commitment to gender equity through allocations, relief and specific proposals. But the budget turned out to contain even less on gender empowerment than it has in earlier years.

Farmers as a group, industry, journalists, the financial sector and capital markets, all received special attention, but women remained sidelined as the largest ignored majority. In the budget, three heads of allocations are cited as `specifically women-oriented'-strengthening the Rashtriya Mahila Kosh, assisting women's self-help groups in 650 blocks, and schemes for destitute women including the widows of Vrindavan and Kashi.

Of these, only the last scheme is `new', but what it entails, whether it will make a difference to the lives of the tens of thousands of widows and whether the scheme will be implemented in a manner to ensure that the benefits reach the intended remains to be seen. Minister for Women and Child Development Sumitra Mahajan defended the budget with the plea that there is `a separate budget' for Women's Empowerment Year.

Clearly, the concept of `taking gender on board' has not been understood by our policy makers. It means taking into careful account the effects of all policies on women in particular, rather than handing out sums as sops for `women's welfare'. Such `feminist budget' exercises have already been undertaken in some African countries and also by UNIFEM, which has pointed out that gender-specific expenditures in national budgets seldom exceed five per cent, even though women constitute 50 per cent of the population.

It has been known for at least a decade now that macro-economic policies and liberalisation as advocated by The World Bank and the IMF increase the number of women below the poverty line, even if the economy as a whole registers gains. In Andhra Pradesh, for instance, land on which indigent women used to graze their cattle and collect fodder has been privatised and fenced-off for commercial enterprise. The state's industrial performance index shows a rise, but destitution among marginalised women has risen.

One of the main gender concerns in the country has been the adverse sex ratio (927 females per 1,000 males according to the last census).

Medico-activists have also pointed out that the Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) has actually risen in the last two years, due in part to the trend of privatisation of health services. India's MMR is 570 per 100,000 live births, against 95 in China, 12 in Italy, 10 in Greece and six in Canada.

Basic medical services, especially for rural women, could make an enormous difference. In Gujarat's Banskantha district, for instance, women in labour have to walk several miles across hilly terrain to reach the nearest medical facility.

The official response to questions on these lacunae is that they are `setting up a task force', or, as Mahajan says, setting up a Women's Resource Centre. But clearly the women who are supposed to benefit from this are not impressed. Says Ms Maimoona, wife of an autorickshaw driver and mother of three as she stands in a queue in front of a ration shop: "Sugar prices have been hiked to almost open market rates. What am I supposed to sweeten our tea with? If I put less sugar my husband throws the hot brew in my face and pushes off to buy a glassful at a tea stall. It is women who are supposed to somehow manage, women who suffer."

Ms Parvati, who stands all day outside the post office as a small savings agent seeking deposits from the public, says the proposed reduction in interest rates will hit her business hard. "The minister says the government is borrowing Rs 11,000 crore this year to make ends meet. Why can't they abolish staff cars and other perks to save money rather than hitting the lower middle classes?" she asks. The closing rhetoric of the finance minister's budget speech was that it was `a budget for reforms, and for a new deal for the people of India in the new millennium'. But as far as affirmative action or reforms for gender equity are concerned, it seems that women will have to wait for another millennium before real action is actually taken.

Women's Feature Service