Gender Responsive Budgeting and Fiscal Decentralisation in Haryana: A Preliminary Appraisal

Recognised as the largest single source of financing for gender equality and women's empowerment, government budgets, working through national and sub-national budgets, strive to be translated into practical policies and programmes. Recommendations are made on how government can better integrate a gender perspective into their public finance systems as well as increase the participation of women in macroeconomic and budgetary policy formulation. Budget is an important tool in the hands of state for affirmative action for improvement of gender relations through reduction of gender gap in the development process. It can help to reduce economic inequalities, between men and women as well as between the rich and the poor. Understanding the relationship between macroeconomic policies and the union budget, state budget and the local self-government institutions in the context of economic reforms and globalisation are must as it has influenced women's lives in several ways.