Plan panel moots 30 percent grant for women in budget

The report observed that the process of gender budgeting is yet to take off in the state. “The classification of all programmes for women under the gamut of the Tamil Nadu Corporation for Development of Women reduces the reach of different department’s schemes. There are several departments that do not have specific programmes to precisely address development requirements of women. A specific allocation of a certain budgetary amount under different departments, say 30 per cent, would ensure an equitable access under all schemes,” it said. 

As per the report, 14 per cent of total households are headed by women where dependency ratios are higher than that for other households. As many as 2.59 million women headed households (WHH) are present in the state. The report observed that such households would likely to have less number of income earners and fluctuations in income would tend to be higher. 

As much as 40.74 per cent of WHH are without access to banking facilities, which is lower than the all India average of 53.4 per cent.

While holding that their vulnerability to economic shocks would also be much higher when compared to that of the other households, it sought to evolve different mechanisms to address social security requirements of such households across urban and rural areas. The report also revealed that the child sex ratio of six districts (Ariyalur, Cuddalore, Dharmapuri, Namakkal, Salem and Perambalur) is lower than the national average which is 919. 

Eight more districts figure in the slot between national average and the state average which is 943. It noted that declining child sex ratio necessitates that specialised girl child protection schemes to be rolled out across all districts. 

The recommendations had figured in the State Planning Commission’s second edition Tamil Nadu Human Development Report (TNHDR).