“A gender-responsive budget is a budget that acknowledges the gender patterns in society and allocates money to implement policies and programmes that will change these patterns in a way that moves towards a more gender equal society”</em> - Ministry of Women & Child Development, Government of India Gender budgeting was introduced in Maharashtra after a government resolution was issued in 2006. The resolution mandated that after meeting the expenditure committed to by the municipal corporation, 5% of the balance be kept reserved for the work done by women and child welfare committees. This is an extremely important step as investing in gender equality not only helps fight violence against women, but also helps achieve developmental goals such aspoverty alleviation, livelihood enhancement and access to education. Government of Maharashtra adopted the principle that ‘Empowerment of women means development of the country’ in 1994 and published a 'Women Policy'. A revised policy was announced in 2001 and the third edition of the policy has been published in 2013. It is not a matter of debate that these are very well-intended policy documents but the real question is: do these policies ever get implemented? Can the government “walk the talk”, as it were? Mumbai is among the few cities in the country that has adopted gender budgeting at the local level and constituted a separate section in its budget. Though the government resolution was passed in 2006, Mumbai Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) introduced gender budgeting only three years later in 2009-10. On <