The recent developments in the area of women empowerment are extremely encouraging.

• The first female fighter pilots have recently been appointed in the Indian Air Force.
• The participation of women in combat roles in the Army is also strongly under consideration.
• The Olympics, Commonwealth Games, and a number of international sporting events including cricket have seen outstanding performances by Indian women.
• Even India’s successful launch of the Mangalyaan and the record-breaking 104 Nano satellites launched into orbit on board a single rocket had a team of women scientists behind them.
• India has been successful in achieving gender parity in school education. Even in technical and professional education such as medicine, law IT, engineering, management etc., the representation of women is significantly increasing The literacy rate of women has risen from a mere 9 per cent in 1951 to 65 per cent in 2011.
• In the workplace today, every fourth worker in India is a woman.
• One third of all certified engineers are now women and over three fourths of all health workers at primary level are women. It is estimated that almost one-third of all certified medical researchers, banking employees, IT workers and chartered accountants are women.
• In a country bursting with entrepreneurial spirit, today almost every fifth entrepreneur is a woman. With their increasing participation in a variety of fields, women’s bargaining power in both private and public life is steadily increasing.
• In politics too, the figures are more encouraging than ever before, elected women representatives now make up about 46 per cent of our Panchayats members. With these 1.3 million+ women in positions of power at the village level, the landscape of our country is changing from ground up.

Women’s financial inclusion has also increased tremendously. On the health front, improvements have been noted with the average life expectancy of women having risen from 31.7 years in 1950-51 to about 70 years in 2016. Institutional births have risen to an all – time high of 79 per cent in 2014-15. The maternal mortality rate has dropped by half in the decade between 2001-03 and 2011-13.

Current Scenario of Gender Discrimination:

Despite these positive figures, unfortunately, women still face serious dangers to their life and liberty in our country. The problems plaguing the women of India are problems plaguing our entire society.

• There are horrific incidents of violence every day
• Young girls are seen dropping out of school to look after their siblings or to be married.
• Women still contribute a disproportionate amount of unpaid work in their homes and on farms.
• Despite having more control over their finances, they are often not given an equal say in household or work decision.

Ending Discrimination:

A number of legislations have been passed and schemes implemented to encourage women in education and formal workforce, ensure their physical and psychological health, promote public and political participation, provide the, with safe public and political spaces and enable their equality within and outside the family.

Financial Empowerment

Economic empowerment is central to the overall empowerment of women, and financial inclusion is an important part of this through the Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana and PM Jan Dhan Yojana, banking services have been enabled for the unbanked.

• Attacking the root of the problem, the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao Programme that addresses the complex issue of mind-sets in all districts of India has been initiated. If people are not made to change the way they think about girls and women, we are unlikely to see much long-lasting success in other initiatives for empowerment.
• Along with this, the Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana was also launched in 2015, under which small affordable deposits are made in the bank accounts of girls, with the benefit of higher rate of interest. The amount can be withdrawn by the girl on reaching 18 years of age, giving her a fund for higher education or other investments.

Encouraging Entrepreneurship

• Under the Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana, the government has provided credit to small entrepreneurs without the need for collateral or a guarantor. 75 per cent of these loans have been given to women.
• Skill development is another key aspect for raising the potential of our female workforce. Under the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana a large number of Indian youth have taken up industry relevant skill training. Till date, half of the certificates awarded under this Yojana have been given to women candidates.

Empowering Motherhood

• To retain women in the workforce, the Maternity Benefit Act has been amended to extend the period of mandatory paid maternity leave for working women to 26 weeks. This empowers working women as they need not fear loss of salary or job due to childbirth and now they also have time to recover and breastfeed their child.
• In order to extend protection to the unorganized sector as well pregnant and lactating mothers are provided cash incentives under the Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana. As partial compensation for wages loss, these mothers are provided Rs 6,000 as incentive, which enables them to take adequate rest before and after the delivery and exclusively breastfeed their child.

Promoting leadership

• Having women in senior positions is a positive step in recognizing the merit of deserving women while also making organizations more women-friendly. The representation of women in boards of companies and at senior positions is, thus, being encouraged in all public and private companies.
• At the village level, women members of Panchayats are leading the empowerment of their villages.

Safety of Women

• An important aspect of empowerment is also safety. Only if women feel safe and secure will they be able to fully participate in the economy and public life. For this, the government has sanctioned 181 women Helplines in 31 States/UTs and 206 One Stop Centres have become operational where women affected by violence can access quick and easy help.
• 33 Per cent reservation for women in the police force is also being implemented.
• The Nirbhaya Fund is also being used to roll-out comprehensive plans to make 8 major cities in the country safer for women and also improve our forensic analysis abilities in cases of sexual assault.
• To empower women and protect their health, the Ujjawala scheme has been introduced, which provides free LPG cylinders to women from BPL families to replace unclean cooking fuels.

Safety in Workplace

• Workplace needs to be made conducive to women employee, strictly implementing the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013.
• This provides a safe and secure environment to women at the workplace and covers all women – all ages, full-time and part-time, public and private sector, organized or unorganized sector etc. including domestic workers, students, apprentices and even those women visiting an office.
• An online complaint system for cases of sexual harassment at workplace has been set up.

Accessing the Inaccessible

• To reach the yet unreached women across the country, my Ministry has recently launched the Mahila Shakti Kendra scheme.
• The way forward lies in the conviction that we must have women-led development rather than just women’s development.
• Along with this, affirmative policies which bring women on a level playing field with others is needed.

As India looks forward to reaping benefits from its demographic dividend, the role of empowered women becomes all the more important.