Budget 2020: ₹ 28,600 cr earmarked for women-related program
The first full-time woman Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Union Budget in Parliament on Saturday. In this budget, the Finance Minister proposed ₹ 28,600 allocation for programs that were specific to women. Apart from that, Sitharaman proposed to provide Rs 35,600 crore for nutrition-related programmes for the year 2020-21.
In her Budget speech in the Lok Sabha, the Finance Minister drew attention to the ‘Poshan Abhiyan’, launched in 2017-18 to improve the nutritional status of children, adolescent girls, pregnant women and lactating mothers.
"More than six lakh anganwadi workers had been equipped with smart phones to upload the nutritional status of more than 10 crore households, which was an unprecedented development," she said.
She lauded the governement's initiative ‘Beti Bachao Beti Padhao’, which led in the increase of gross enrolment ratio of girls. Sitharaman informed that the gross enrolment ratio of girls across all levels of education is now higher than boys.
In the Budget session, the Finance Minister proposed to appoint a task force to recommend marrigable age for women.
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