WCD ministry seeks higher allocation for schemes in meeting with Finance Commission

According to an official release, the proposals include gender budgeting in its fiscal devolution formula.

In the Commission's Vertical Devolution, the Ministry has requested prioritizing gender concerns within schemes/ programmes - with a minimum compulsory allocation of 25 per cent to 40 per cent.

In its horizontal devolution, the Commission has been requested to incorporate gender criteria (child sex ratio and female labour force participation) as criteria for horizontal devolution of funds between states.

The ministry has called for incentivising performance. It said that states with better performance in women education, health outcomes, labour force participation rate, nutritional outcomes may be considered for incentive grants.

It also suggested increasing the allocation of the ministry in the union budget. The release said that the commission has assured that they would look into the recommendations carefully while framing its report.

Finance Commission Chairman N.K. Singh, members and senior officials of the commission and senior officials of the ministry were present at the meeting.