“To awaken the people, it is the women who must be awakened. Once she is on the move, the family moves, the village moves, the nation moves” – Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru

Development cannot effectively reduce poverty unless all groups contribute to the creation of opportunities, share the benefits of development and participate in decision making. The goal of inclusive development is to achieve an inclusive society able to accommodate differences and to value diversity.

Perspective on Women Empowerment:

• Empowerment is a multi-faceted, multi-dimensional and multi-layered concept.
• Women’s empowerment is a process in which women gain greater share of control over resources material, human and intellectual, like knowledge information, ideas and financial resources like money and access to money and control over decision making in the home, community, society and nation and to gain “power”.
• The grim scenario of women having no voice in their own houses has undergone major transformation in recent times.
• Almost every fifth women is an entrepreneur both in urban and rural India.

Initiatives for Empowering Women:

Right from recognizing the need to protect the girl child in the womb to protecting career women in their work place, a number of initiatives have been taken.

• Schemes like PM Matru Vandana Yojana give financial protection to women during their pregnancy and lactation period.
• A very significant move has been the modification of the Maternity Benefit Act allowing working women 26 weeks of paid maternity leave.
• Programmes like Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao and Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana take care of the girl child right from protecting her from female foeticide to ensuring her education and financial security.
• Only a healthy woman can be an empowered woman.
• The Ayushman Bharat Programme, National Nutrition Mission, Ujjawala Yojana etc, take care of the health and nutritional requirements of Indian Women.

Empowerment Programmes for Women:

Various schemes and programmes have been implemented in the fields of neo-natal care, pregnancy, nutritive care of lactating mothers, etc. Women enjoy significant presence in every area-be it the armed forces, medicine, finance and even in such male dominated jobs like driving auto rickshaws, buses or even as pilots.

Deen Dayal Upadhyay Antyodaya Yojana (DAY-NRLM):

• Ajeevika is a major project which focuses on rural women and aims to achieve universal social mobilization by involving rural women.
• There are two other important components of Ajeevika, relevant for improvement of livelihoods of rural women.
  • Deen Dayal Upadhyay Grameen Kaushalya Yojana (DDU-GKY) aims to skill rural youth who are poor and provide them with jobs having regular monthly wages or above the minimum wages.
  • Mahila Kisan Sashaktikaran Pariyojana (MKSP) is another component that aims to improve the present status of women in agriculture and to enhance the opportunities for empowerment.

Empowering Elected Women Representatives (EWRs):

• An extensive training programme has been launched with an objective of empowering Elected Women Representatives (EWRs) and to help them assume the leadership roles expected of them and guide their villages for a more prosperous future.

Rastriya Mahila Kosh (RMK):

• Rastriya Mahila Kosh (RMK), extends micro-credit to women in the informal sector through a client friendly, and in a hassle-free manner without collateral for income generation activities.
• Education of credit management has been integrated with the provision of credit, along with literary and skill training for individual women and leadership training among groups for self-management.

Mahila Shakti Kendra (MSK):

• In order to support rural women and provide them with convergent support a new scheme has been approved namely Mahila Shakti Kendra (MSK).
• It is a sub scheme under the Umbrella Scheme of Mission for Protection and Empowerment for Women to empower rural women through community participation.

National Repository of Information for Women (NARI):

• A portal has been prepared which will provide citizens easy access to information on schemes and initiatives for women.

Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (BBBP):

• Beti Bachao Padhao (BBBP), was launched to address the declining Child Sex Ratio.

National Nutrition Mission (NNM):

• The aim of the mission is to achieve an improvement in the nutritional status of children of 0-6 years and pregnant and lactating women in a time bound manner, with defined targets.

Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (PMMVY):

• The Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (PMMVY) is a maternity benefit programme.
• The beneficiaries would receive cash incentive of Rs. 6000/- during pregnancy and after institutional delivery.

P.M. Ujjwala Yojana

• It is a scheme to aid poor sections of Indian society.
• The intent of this scheme is to make cooking gas (LPG) available to women from families that are financially backward.
• The main objectives of P. M Ujjwala Yojana are:

1. To enhance the status of women and caring for their health
2. To help decrease air pollution due to use of fossil fuel
3. Lessening the serious health risks related with cooking based on fossil fuels.
4. Reducing the number of deaths due to unclean cooking fuels which is almost 5 lakh every year in India
5. Preventing young children from acute respiratory illness caused due to indoor air pollution by burning the fossil fuels.

Encouraging Entrepreneurship:

• Under the Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana, government has provided credit to small entrepreneurs without the need for collateral or a guarantor.
• PM Jan Dhan Yojana gas played a critical role in the financial inclusion of 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.