India has been moving on the road to development at a rapid speed, maintaining its growth rate on every front — economy, trade and international relations. The makeover has not only nurtured but also empowered many socio-economic groups, including women, and improved their lot, to a degree. Women emancipation is intrinsic to nation building.
The push for women emancipation may not be at the expected pace but it has certainly stepped beyond the shadow of the subtle. Women have started to play a pivotal role in India’s growth story at a time when other countries are looking at India for its contribution to world economic development.
Seen in this light, little doubt remains that women empowerment requires further impetus.
The World Bank, in its India Development Report released last year, said the country had one of the lowest women participations in the workforce. This report had ranked India 120 out of 131 countries. Even a minuscule increase in women's participation in the overall workforce means a jump in India’s GDP of billions of dollars.
Today, we can say convincingly that Governments, corporates and ordinary people are working for the upliftment of women. The Government is also doing what is needed to empower women. On the sidelines of a United Nations conference, the Indian delegation revealed that there were 24 Government programmes presently running for the welfare of women.
Women empowerment can’t be done in a piecemeal manner, though. A recent report said that a total of only nine per cent of women candidates got admission in our IITs this year. I am sure that the ratio of boy to girl students will be almost the same in the other engineering institutes as well. In the context of gender diversity, this does not paint a good picture.
Higher education is one area where all of us owe it to the nation to make the existing ecosystems more women-positive by way of increasing their numbers in the technical institutes and other related education fields.
Corporate India, as part of the overall Indian milieu, is lending a shoulder to this effort. It’s making a conscious and sustained attempt to induct more women into the workforce and boardrooms, though the rate is still low compared to the global numbers.
More women employees are found in services or IT. Understandably, the number starts to dwindle when it comes to the more traditional world of manufacturing.
Conventional companies have started to change this. Initiatives include reaching out with job offers to graduating women on campus. But in the journey of scaling up women's economic empowerment, let us not forget the urban-rural divide that thwarts the implementation of many a scheme, and stops its benefits from reaching rural women. In this respect, I would call for an added focus on the rural woman because she faces even more hurdles than her urban counterpart.
For example, their denial to even basic education means rural Indian women have no idea of their rights. In addition to education, what is also required is access to basic healthcare for her family and her, and ownership of a productive resource so that rural women are truly empowered. When that really happens, India will find itself on a path of true transformation.
In this, the private sector can play a crucial role in catalysing change. Corporates, with pan-India operations having manufacturing and other business infrastructure across the country, touch the lives of millions in semi-urban and rural areas. Building on this interface, we can collectively help to enhance the rural women's lot, increase its knowledge capital, provide required training skills and promote the fund management through designed cooperative and federations.
The writer is Ajay Kapur, MD & CEO,Ambuja Cement
