India, Nov. 2 -- India has institutionalised gender-responsive budgeting (GRB). The next opportunity is to strengthen the data systems beneath it, so gender budgeting captures reach and informs planning. Take G-RAM-G (formerly MGNREGA). The budget share tells us how much is allocated for women. But to understand reach and impact on women, we need to know how many women get work, how many days of work they receive, and what changes for them. The systems largely exist; departments already maintain these records. What is needed is a field that captures sex disaggregation in the data collection format, not a new system.

Nearly eight out of ten rupees in the 2026-27 Gender Budget go to schemes that benefit both women and men. But how much of ...