As Nirmala Sitharaman, India’s first full-time woman Finance Minister, presents Budget 2019 in the Parliament today, here’s what women are expecting this year.
As the newly appointed finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman prepares to announce the union budget today, expectations are running high among the women in the country who are hoping for a more female-friendly budget. Although the Interim-Union budget, which was presented in February by the then Finance Minister Piyush Goyal, was based on the idea of ‘women-led development’, the ground reality seems to be a bit different as women are still asking for the basic facilities.
Back to the basics
Sona Choksi, a single mother of two is hoping to get relief from the increasing cost of fruits and vegetables. “I think at least from the point of necessities such as food, water, shelter, the prices of all these things should be minimum. Now apple will be Rs 200/kg and biscuit will be Rs 5. If I have kids at home, then it is difficult to survive, so at least, food items should be affordable.” Although the inflation rate has decreased compared to 2013, according to government data, the cost of food items in India increased 1.83 percent in May of 2019.
Hema Bhagvani, a 60-year-old housewife echoes Sona’s voice as the rising costs has put a strain on her monthly budget as well. “LPG has become so expensive, it gets difficult to manage the finances,” she says and adds that she is also hoping to see a reduction in the transportation and domestic flight charges. “These are services used by the masses, so they should be priced according to our pockets.” Although the government doesn’t control the airfares, they do control the tax. The central government charges 11% excise duty (reduced from 14%) and on top of that, state charges sales tax or VAT which changes from state to state. Bringing VAT under GST could be one option the Government could bring in to help airlines provide lower fare rates.
Increase tax slabs
In its first budget in 2014, the Narendra Modi led BJP government increased the tax exemption limit by '50,000 giving taxpayers enough reasons to cheer. Since then, not much changed in income tax slabs. Monika Gupta, a prosthodontist hopes that the tax slabs are increased in this budget. “The slabs should increase because the cost of living is going up in cities such as Mumbai.” As the current tax slabs stand, individuals under 60, earning a minimum of 2.5 lakhs, need to pay around 5% tax. Monika also added, “Being a doctor, I would also suggest reducing duties on medical equipment so that we can provide better treatment. If our expenditure reduces, then we can provide better service. Over five years, the cost of running my clinic has almost tripled, so my fees have also increased.”
Health benefits for women
In the interim budget, the allocation for the ministry of women and child development reflected a 20% hike from last year, the country still lacks quality maternity care.
Jagruti Verma, a 23-year-old content writer points out an incident where a woman had to give birth at the railway station, she explains, “In that case, a family member of the pregnant lady was taking them from one hospital to another, because smaller hospitals were not equipped enough to handle complications in pregnancy. There should be proper maternity health care in every area so that women don’t have to put themselves at risk or have to travel to a better hospital.” There is an existing Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana but the allocations for the same has dropped by '1,200 crores between 2017-18 and 2018-19 budget estimates. Jagruti also adds, “Only increasing maternity leave is not enough, they should create an ecosystem where they can actually implement this. Announcing extended leaves is not enough. You have to empower the companies and give them subsidies so that they can enforce the leave. Otherwise, how would a small company afford to let its workforce go?.”
Monika, being a medical professional would also like to see affordable health care for women. “The Govt should introduce affordable mediclaim for women with a new number of diseases so that more women can be covered under it. If you see, now a days, very few women are covered under mediclaim, so this will help more women get better treatment.” The Modi government launched Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Abhiyaan in September last year, but the eligibility depends on the socio economic status, which leaves out a large chunk of middle-class families.
