Budget cut: Women’s empowerment on the back burner this year

Five new schemes have been proposed but all of them have yet to be approved.

KARACHI:

The provincial government has reduced the Annual Development Funds (ADP) meant to be spent on the economic empowerment and welfare of the women by 28% in the current fiscal year.

A sum of Rs313 million has been earmarked in the 2014-15 annual budget under the annual development programme against the Rs435 million set aside in the ADP in the budget of 2013-14.

New schemes

Under the ADP, five new schemes worth Rs45 million have been proposed in the current budget but all of them have yet to be approved. These include establishment of a hostel for the working women in Karachi, construction of a women complaint cell building in Karachi, Hyderabad and Larkana. Other schemes include repair and maintenance of the existing building of the Women Training Institute at Benazirabad, computerisation of the offices of Women Development Department and establishment of the women development complex in Karachi, Hyderabad, Thatta and Larkana.

Old schemes

An amount of Rs268 million has been earmarked for the 11 ongoing schemes, 10 of which were approved in 2010 and 2011.



These schemes include establishment of a sales and display resource centre, daycare centres, complaint cells and hostels. Other important projects which have been lingering on include implementation of the gender reforms action plan and establishment of the mediation centre through the alternate dispute resolution.

Of the total allocations made under the ADP in the last budget, the women development department only received Rs110 million. However, only Rs5.7 million was spent from those funds on five of the fourteen schemes approved in 2012-13. Not a single penny was spent on the remaining nine schemes.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 16^th, 2014.