Critical Review of Women’s Development Policies and Planning in India

India has one of the most extensive legal and policy frameworks for women’s development in the world. From constitutional guarantees to dozens of national schemes, the intent has never been in question. What has been questioned – repeatedly and urgently – is whether these policies actually translate into change on the ground. A critical look at how India plans for women’s development reveals a persistent gap between ambitious declarations and the lived realities of women, particularly those who are poor, rural, or from marginalized communities.

A constitutional promise and its limits 🔗

The principle of gender equality is enshrined in the Indian Constitution – in its Preamble, Fundamental Rights, Fundamental Duties, and Directive Principles. The state is not merely expected to treat women equally; it is empowered to adopt affirmative measures in their favor. Article 14 guarantees equality before the law. Article 15(3) allows special provisions for women. Article 39 mandates equal pay for equal work.

Yet as the Ministry of Women and Child Development itself has acknowledged, there still exists a wide gap between the goals set out in the Constitution and the situational reality of women in India. Gender disparity manifests in many forms – a declining sex ratio, social stereotyping, violence, and persistent discrimination against girl children. The promise exists in writing; the delivery has been uneven.

From welfare to empowerment: the evolution of planning 🔗

India’s approach to women in national planning has shifted significantly across decades. There has been a progression in policy approaches from the concept of ‘welfare’ in the seventies, to ‘development’ in the eighties, and ’empowerment’ from the nineties onward. But this shift has been slow and imperfect.

The early plans: women as welfare recipients 🔗

The first four Five-Year Plans (1951-1974) largely treated women as recipients of welfare rather than agents of development. The dominant thinking reflected patriarchal assumptions – women’s economic roles were seen as secondary to men’s, development was primarily valued for its effect on family welfare, and there was minimal recognition of women’s existing economic contributions in agriculture, the informal sector, and the household economy.

A turning point came with the Fifth Five-Year Plan (1974-1978), which coincided with the publication of the landmark “Towards Equality” report by the Committee on the Status of Women in India. This report documented extensive gender disparities and triggered a rethinking of how development policy approached women. From the Fifth Plan onward, there was a marked shift in approach – from welfare to development.

The Sixth Plan onwards: a more integrated approach 🔗

The inclusion of women in the Sixth Plan (1980-1985) came partly because pressure from the women’s movement prompted some acknowledgment of gender issues within state policies. The plan adopted a multi-pronged strategy focusing on health, education, and employment – and for the first time, the plan document included a chapter specifically on ‘Women and Development.’

The Eighth Five-Year Plan (1992-1997) went further, explicitly acknowledging the need for gender-sensitive development and calling for gender-specific programs across health, education, and employment. The Twelfth Five-Year Plan (2012-2017) focused on women’s agency by identifying strategies that addressed traditional barriers – economic empowerment, social and physical infrastructure, enabling legislation, and participation in governance. The concept of mainstreaming was central: integrating gender perspectives into all aspects of development rather than treating women as a separate, siloed category.

Critical gaps in policy formulation 🔗

Despite this evolution, the policies have faced persistent criticism for being inadequate, poorly conceptualized, and inconsistently implemented.

Narrow conceptualization of women’s needs 🔗

One of the most significant failures is that policymakers have often defined women’s needs in narrow terms – primarily health, nutrition, and family planning – rather than addressing them as full economic and political actors. The strategy for women in many plans has been confined to three areas: violence against women, economic empowerment, and women’s health. While these are critical, they leave out questions of land rights, unpaid care work, digital access, and political voice.

Women’s unpaid labor – which sustains households and communities – has historically been invisible in planning documents. Female workforce participation in India remains at around 25.1%, one of the lowest in South Asia, and climate-induced displacement adds at least 12-14 hours of additional work for women, further increasing the burden of unpaid care. These realities rarely appear in policy design.

The implementation deficit 🔗

There is also a well-documented gap between what plans say and what actually happens in practice. Challenges remained in implementation, with continuing gaps between policy pronouncements and grassroots realities. Funds earmarked for women’s development are sometimes redirected, inadequately monitored, or absorbed into generic schemes without gender-specific tracking.

Women-specific allocations in the Gender Budget Statement of the Union Government have not shown any meaningful increase over the years in terms of their percentage of the total Union Budget, and key ministries do not always give adequate attention to marginalized women’s groups. The Ministry of Agriculture and Farmer Welfare, for instance, targets allocating at least 30% of its scheme budgets for women but does not adequately address the needs of women from tribal or Dalit communities. These are not exceptions – they are systemic patterns.

Token inclusion without genuine participation 🔗

A deep structural problem is that women – especially poor and rural women – are largely absent from the rooms where these policies are made. Planning has historically been a top-down exercise. There is a pressing need to ensure the participation of women in the process of formulation and implementation of development planning, so that gender equity issues are properly accounted for and plans have a genuinely positive impact on women.

The National Policy for Women’s Empowerment itself recognizes this, calling for partnerships with civil society and women’s organizations. But recognizing the need and building the structures to fulfill it are two different things. Grassroots women’s voices remain underrepresented at the national planning level.

Gender budgeting: a step forward, but incomplete 🔗

One of the more significant policy innovations has been gender budgeting, introduced in the Union Budget in 2005-06. The Gender Budget has been part of the Union Budget of India since 2005, with the government earmarking substantial funds to be used by ministries toward schemes and programs aimed at reducing gender gaps across social, economic, and political life.

Before gender budgeting, the Ninth Five-Year Plan had introduced the Women Component Plan, which mandated that at least 30% of plan allocations in women-related sectors should flow toward women’s empowerment. Gender budgeting built on this by institutionalizing a reporting mechanism. However, gender-sensitive checklists and tools developed by the Ministry of Women and Child Development are not clearly being used consistently across all ministries and departments. The tool exists; uptake remains patchy.

The role of grassroots organizations in filling the gap 🔗

Where formal policy has fallen short, grassroots women’s organizations – particularly Self-Help Groups (SHGs) – have often stepped in. India’s SHG movement is one of the largest of its kind in the world. The National Livelihoods Mission has organized women into over eight million SHGs that are linked to banks and benefit from an annual credit uptake of $7.7 billion.

Originally designed as savings and credit groups, SHGs have expanded their role to include creating health and nutrition awareness, improving governance, and addressing social issues related to gender- and caste-based discrimination. Research confirms that SHG membership significantly improves women’s control over income, decision-making over credit, and active community involvement.

The impact goes beyond economics. Nearly 60% of SHG members have taken on leadership roles within their groups, and about 40% have engaged in community decision-making processes beyond their immediate SHG activities – directly challenging traditional gender roles at the community level. Many SHG members have gone on to contest and win elections as Panchayat representatives and Gram Pradhans, bringing women’s perspectives directly into local governance.

SHGs and state governments: bridging policy and practice 🔗

SHGs work best when they operate as genuine partners with state governments – not simply as delivery vehicles for top-down programs. When governments impose a top-down development model on SHGs, it can constrain the already disempowered women, reducing individuals’ ability to realize and pursue their own interests. The most effective models are those where SHGs retain autonomy while receiving state support – financial linkages, legal protection, and access to services – rather than being instrumentalized to implement centrally designed schemes.

UN Women India has facilitated the adoption of gender action plans in over 12 states, enhancing gender-responsive governance at both state and local levels – a model that shows how national policy intent can be made meaningful through decentralized, collaborative implementation.

What a more inclusive approach looks like 🔗

Critics and development practitioners point to several concrete shifts needed in how India plans for women’s development.

First, policies need to move beyond treating women as a homogeneous group. Dalit women, tribal women, women with disabilities, and women in conflict zones face compounded disadvantages that generic women’s policies do not address. Despite clear policy frameworks, structural inequity in the form of poverty, discrimination, violence, and harmful social norms continues to erode the gains made.

Second, bridging the gender gap across several development indices still requires considerable work – female workforce participation remains low, literacy levels are still skewed, and the digital divide persists with far fewer women than men reporting internet use. Policies need to address these interconnected deficits in an integrated way rather than through isolated sectoral schemes.

Third, state governments must be more actively involved. India’s federal structure means that much of women’s development is actually implemented at the state level, yet planning has often been centralized. Ensuring adequate flow of funds and making planning gender-sensitive at the state level remain persistent challenges. Capacity-building for gender budgeting at the state level – which the Ministry of Women and Child Development has undertaken through training workshops – is a step in the right direction, but needs to be scaled significantly.

Finally, the women’s movement itself – NGOs, feminist collectives, academic researchers, and grassroots organizations – must be formally integrated into the policy formulation process, not just consulted after decisions are made. Building and strengthening partnerships with civil society, particularly women’s organizations, is explicitly stated as a priority in India’s National Policy for Women’s Empowerment – making it a commitment that planning processes need to take far more seriously in practice.

What do you think? Given that India’s policy documents have long recognized gender equality as a priority, why do you think the gap between written policy and ground-level reality persists so stubbornly – and what kind of structural change would be needed to close it? Should grassroots women’s organizations have a formal, binding role in national development planning rather than an advisory one?

References

1. https://wcd.nic.in/womendevelopment/national-policy-women-empowerment
2. https://www.ijfmr.com/papers/2023/4/4972.pdf
3. https://socio.health/women-in-economy/women-india-five-year-plans-welfare-empowerment/
4. https://www.ispp.org.in/unveiling-the-impact-of-public-policies-on-womens-equality-in-india/
5. https://ijcrt.org/papers/IJCRT2003356.pdf
6. https://www.undp.org/india/gender-equality
7. https://www.feministpolicyindia.org/documents/resources/India-Gender-Report-2024.pdf
8. https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1707475
9. https://india.un.org/en/172095-gender-equality-and-youth-development
10. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8350313/
11. https://rangde.in/blog/the-pivotal-role-of-self-help-groups-in-advancing-gender-equality-in-india
12. https://academic.oup.com/cdj/article/58/2/283/6374653
13. https://asiapacific.unwomen.org/en/countries/india
14. https://ngofeed.com/blog/gender-equality-in-india-by-2025/