The Changing Status of Women in India-The Challenges Ahead

By
Dr Suvarna Sen *
Ishita Mukherjee**

Abstract
This article attempts to provide a contemporary overview of gender and development concerns in
India .It throws light on the various aspects of gender related issues by examining the trends in
women’s employment, wages, literacy and school enrolment. This is followed by an analysis of the
trends in women’s health and participation in political decision making process .In India, the
challenges faced by women in dealing with issues relating to their deprivation, are manifold.
Although the process of women’s empowerment has been successful to a certain extent, gender-
related socioeconomic biases are still existing .These can addressed by properly identifying the
areas of concern and implementing suitable policies ,which this article attempts to focus on.

Introduction

As is the characteristic of every developing nations, a vast majority of Indian women have always
been engaged in a seemingly endless struggle. It has ranged from fundamental rights, like the right
to life, food, shelter and security, at other times to things like the right to property, political rights
and also the right to take decisions. If she has gained an inch on any one of the issues, she has lost a
foot on the other. Renewed action is the demand in the new millennium. To resurrect this skewed
deviation, the need of the hour is to work relentlessly towards a concerted and sustained group
effort to address the problems that women are still facing today. If women unite, they have nothing
to lose sans subjugation. Hence; this positive step will lead to a direction that will see the dusk of
women’s struggle and the dawn of real freedom

With this background , we have attempted to analyze precisely the position of women in Indian
economy, in terms of a set of indicators .These indicators are classified on the basis of the four
important aspects of women’s lives namely work ,education, health and participation in private
/public decision making

*
Faculty Member, IBS –Kolkata
**
Research Associate, IBS Research Center, Kolkata

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Women and Work

To assess the changing profile of women, it would be pertinent to analyze the prevailing gender
dynamics of the Indian work force .Since 1970, the overall labour force participation in the Indian
workforce have been relatively stable for both men and women .This implies that employment rates
have been growing at the same level .The dynamic trends that have been observed in the three
important sectors of the Indian labour force are as follows:

a) Agriculture: This sector employs a majority of the labour force, especially in rural areas, and of
these Dalit and tribal women account for half of the female agricultural labourers .Studies have
shown that men shifted from farm to nonfarm employment in the agricultural sector but not
women .This has been the disadvantage of women as they had to bear the brunt of stagnation in
the agricultural farm sector.Moreover, these women have been loosing out on higher wages in the
non-farm sector. The overall growth rates of employment in this sector have been found to be
stagnating and in this sector , a decreasing trend has been observed in the wages of women
mainly attributed to less favorable conditions of employment for female agricultural workers in
recent years.

b) Formal Sector: In the formal sector, the percentage of female labour have been found to be
4%, whereas it has been 10% for men.The employment growth rates for women is 3.6 % ,while for
men ,it has been 2.5%.

c) Informal sector: With maximum number of women being employed in the informal sector, it
has been found that women are being paid lower wages than men.Apart from employment ,it is a
well documented fact that in India , women’s educational attainment has been substantially less than
that of men.This can be understood by the average literacy rates among men and women and low
enrollment figures of women compared to that of men. .
As in the case of education, addition to women’s labour force participation and earnings are also
considerably lower than that of men. Women’s concentration of work has been both in the labour
market and in the household. In both these spheres ,their contribution has remained unpaid and
unrecognized owing to the following reasons:
a) Intertwining of their work with household activities
b) Being unpaid, it is difficult for enumerators to identify them as workers .

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c)Women have been assigned a lower status, mainly because national accounting systems have
excluded the role played by them in the care sector (predominantly in bearing and rearing children,
household maintenance).
To delve deep into the aforesaid non-recognition of women’s participation in economic activities , a
critical analysis of female work participation rate would help us in understanding the basic aspects
covering economic participation of women.

Female work participation (FWP):

Female Work Participation Rate (FWPR) is calculated as the proportion of total workers (main plus
marginal) among female workers above six years. At an all India level, this rate is substantially low
to the extent of 30% only. Female work participation is lower in the states of West Bengal and
Punjab, while it is the highest in Kerela. In most of the hilly and tribal states of the Northeast like
Himachal Pradesh and Chattisgarh ,FWP rates are quite high. These high level of women’s labour
participation is due to the fact that community-based organization of subsistence production
requires greater participation of women.Compared to the southern states with relatively higher work
participation rates, women’s work participation is not encouraged to that extent in the north for
reasons of social status. A factor that is associated with better work participation has been the levels
of educational attainment. However, this is not true in all cases. For example, in the states of Punjab
and Kerela with high levels of female literacy, there is no direct correlation between educational
attainment and work participation rates.
This correlation is however observed in the organized sector, where participation is positively
linked with levels of academic attainment. Women’s employment in this sector’s only 17 per cent,
the highest of which is in the southern and northeastern states of India. Among them, Kerala tops
the list with 39 percent of all organized sector workers comprising of women. Bihar, Uttar Pradesh,
West Bengal, Jammu and Kashmir and Orissa experience a lower share of women’s employment.
Educational attainment and extensive employment opportunities available for women of this state
have been thought to be behind this outcome. In case of the unorganized sector, it is observed that
although a greater proportion of women are involved in a multifarious range of activities, they are
not remunerated accordingly.
Overall in the country, low rate of Female work participation has been due to the following two
factors:
a) Less importance given to women’s work, especially in the unorganized sector
b) Huge burden of domestic responsibilities hinder their activities in the economic sector.

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Despite the plummeting rate of FWP, nearly 31 per cent of urban and 26 per cent of rural women
are willing to undertake work within their homes (Government of India 2001) which is an
encouraging trend. In this context, Kampala (1999) has argued in favour of income earning
opportunities for housewives as a means of empowering and improving their economic status. This
brings to light the need for employment generation in newer and more sustainable spheres of
activities where women can be productively engaged .To be able to optimally utilize these
opportunities, women must be educated and trained accordingly.

Women and Education

It is a widely acknowledged fact that improvements in the quality of women’s education will bring
about gender development to a certain extent. Although literacy alone is not sufficient to subdue the
existing levels of discrimination, still one cannot rule out its potential benefit for women’s
empowerment. Hence, female education had always been given priority in the Five Year Plans
(since the 6th Five Year Plan onwards). The National Policy on Education in its Resolution in 1968,
laid emphasis on improving the quality of education and the need to focus on the education of girls.
The NPE -1986 provided for a comprehensive policy framework for educational upliftment and in
1992 a Plan of Action (P0A), assigned specific responsibilities for organizing, implementing and
financing its proposals.
Over the last two decades, significant improvements have been observed the proportion of literate
women, from 39 % in 1991 to 54 %in 2001. High women’s literacy levels have been observed in
states of Kerela, Mizoram and Goa However even today, there exists over 193 million women who
are still illiterate. The states having the lowest literacy level for women in the country are Bihar ,
Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand. In Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh, the literacy levels
have been far below the all-India average. Inequality in education in Rajasthan have been a result of
gender and caste attitudes. In 1991, the state had the worst literacy rate for women which was as
low as 20 %. However, by 2001,several improvements were made in women’s literacy in
Rajasthan(the proportion of literate women had almost doubled)as well as in Madhya Pradesh.This
positive effect was the due to the implementation of educational programmes like Adult Literacy
Mission, Mahila Samakhya and District Primary Education Programme(DPEP).

Female Literacy and Gender Gaps

As per the 2001 census, the relevant data pertaining to literacy presents an optimistic picture. As
can be observed from Table 1 below, there has been a rise in female literacy by 15% during the

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period 1991 -2001 as compared to 12% rise in male literacy. The overall literacy rate during the
same period has increased by 13.2%. However, we see a slightly different picture when we analyze
the absolute numbers. While the number of illiterate men is 106,654,066, it is seen that 189,554,886
women are still illiterate.

Total Male Female

1991 2001 1991 2001 1991 2001

Total 52.2 65.4 64.1 75.9 39.3 54.2

Rural 44.7 N/A 57.9 N/A 30.6 N/A
Urban 73.1 N/A 81.1 N/A 64.1 N/A
Source: Census of India 2001

Inspite of the above stated facts, the differences in literacy rates for both males and female s in rural
and urban areas continues to be grossly high, although the overall literacy rate for women has been
catching up in the country. In the rural areas only 46 percent of women were literate compared to
nearly 73% in urban areas (year 2001) .Between 2001-02, the enrollment of girls was well below 50
% of the total enrolment in primary schools. In states like U.P, Bihar, Rajasthan and W.B, the
enrolment rates and dropout rates for girls in primary schools have been very high. As a result, very
few girls get the opportunity to pursue secondary or higher levels of education. This further
indicates low human development; lack of trained or skilled people to meet the demands in the
market. It also lowers the probability of women joining the labor force, except being employed in
the informal sector. Lower literacy rates have a detrimental effect on the awareness of women
regarding their health needs. This forecloses the possibility of their access to services available for
their well being.
This has been mainly due to the additional burden of responsibilities upon girls, like sibling care,
helping their mothers in household activities etc. As a result, very few girls get the opportunity to
pursue secondary or higher levels of education beyond the primary level. Studies have even found
that among women, those making it to higher secondary education levels, mostly study arts or
humanities subjects. They are often discouraged from undertaking any technical or skill based
education. This raises serious questions about the value of female education and the trend is quite

5
critical for the future of female literacy. A number of factors are responsible for low literacy rate,
such as the shortage of teachers, schools and infrastructure which both gir ls and boys have to face.
However, the most important factors assigning the lowest priority to girls’ education are perception
and socia l attitude and this further increases the gender gap in education. The low enrolment of girls
in schools can be explained by a number of factors like greater emphasis on training girls for their
marriage, inadequate number of female teachers and high levels of dropout among girls.

In the states of North India, the huge gender gap in education have been mostly due to long
established gender norms. Here girls are married-off at very young ages and parental investments in
the education of girls are practically nil . According to Census figures, the percentage of girls
attending school in this State has been only 37.4 percent .Moreover a large proportion children out
of school were girls. The literacy rates for women among the Scheduled Castes and Tribes were as
low as 9 per cent and 7 per cent respectively. Thus, gender , caste and social attitudes have resulted
in severe gender inequity in education and has contributed to the existing low status of women in
Rajasthan.

Opportunities and constraints facing female education

There are two main schools of thought that exist on issues of female education. The first school of
thought focuses on the provision of services and higher quality schools to be distributed equitably
amongst different regions. The second school of thought addresses the social dynamics that
involves the decision to send girls to school .The key points of both these schools of thought are as
follows:

• Health: The differential access to health services and nutrition greatly affects performance
of girls at schools and also makes thereby further reducing her chances of going to school.
• Marriage and Marriagebility: In rural areas and low income families, a highly educated
girls is perceived to lack good domestic skills and this drastically reduces her scope for
marriage. The case is reverse in urban areas where education is considered an asset for girls
to get a good suitor. The implementation of the legal age of marriage and Government laws
of mandatory education are therefore essential for increasing their chance to go to school.
• Cost of Education: The unwillingness or inability of parents to bear the fees for their girl
child is another major point. In this context, it is worth mentioning that subsidies funding
the education of the girl child that cover the minimal costs of education (e.g. Andhra
Pradesh and Tamil Nadu have been effective in raising the enrollment rates of girls).

6
 Therefore, subsidizing the training for women at the secondary level, would encourage
more girls to enter the graduate level of studies.
• Syllabi: Different boards of education should consciously undertake the task of including
positive images of women.
• Safety: Ensuring the safety of girls is one of the major task that needs to be undertaken in a
collective manner.

Inspite of the aforesaid policy prescriptions , the challenge posed in trying to retain the enrolment of
girls in school far surpasses the efforts required to enroll them. Thus, unless girls continue their
education upto higher levels of schooling, the potential benefits of education will be far limited .To
attain it , the indispensable need for a more structured effort on the part of the Government is
necessary.

Expenditure on Education

With the introduction of the New Economic Policy in 1991, the total expenditure on education
declined substantially for two consecutive years. A reversal in this trend was seen during 1993-94,
and this continued till 1996 -97, when expenditure reached the 1987 levels. However, the current
trend that has been observed is that even this low budgeted expenditure is not being utilized to its
full potential. For example , according to the 1997-98 Report by Rawal and Swaminathan (2000), of
the Rs 25,431 million that had been budgeted, only Rs 22,668 million was actually spent.

With a desire to focus on education, national policy’s emphasis is shifting more from center to
community and local based programs. However, decentralization of education and the drive
towards it needs further attention, inspite of the initial success of the Total Literacy Campaigns
(TLC’s) in Kerela, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh.

The greatest challenge posed is to increase the rates of retention of girls in the school levels.
However almost every time this surpasses the efforts that are required to enroll them. Educating
girls atleast upto the higher levels of schooling is essential. Unless this is done, the potential
benefits of education will still remain limited

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Addressing gender inequalities in education.

In imparting education to girls ,aspects of gender inequalities comes to the fore that impedes the
progress .To take care of such inequalities ,appropriate corrective steps needs to be undertaken. The
prominent among them are as follows.

a)It is important to introduce measures that are needed to reduce rather than accommodate the
workload of girls .This is important for improving their access to education. This problem could be
addressed through the provision of crèches.

b) Specific attention should be given to tribal, Dalit and Muslim girls while attemptin g to retain
them in education.

c) Various policies that promote female employment need to take account possibility that there
may be a negative impact on the education of girls if women work outside the home.

d) Identification of factors that enable girls to remain in education through project related research.
It is also important to identify the various factors relative impact of which increases the enrollment
and retention of girls.

e) The gender bias in education that can be addressed through appropriate economic policies must
be identified. Educated women in the rural areas can be empowered through better employment
opportunities and creating incentives to female education like relaxing the criteria for recruitment
for women seeking jobs in public service positions.

Policy Responses : The Outcomes

In several states, a number of innovative schemes launched by the government have been met with
a lot of success in raising overall literacy rates in the recent years. .With a substantial positive
impact on female literacy some of the successful schemes been highlighted below:

a. Total Literacy Campaigns (TLCs):

Overtly successful in Kerela ,the scheme has now spread throughout the country .Having an
overwhelming number of women involved, its success in recent years is a worth .The scheme works
by creating an umbrella with district level committees under which volunteer based programs
having equal participation of people from all sections of society work together in the literacy
campaigns. Despite their success in South India, these programs had limited success in the north
.Hence, it has become essential to tailor TLCs to specific communities and focus on their further
success.

b. Non –Formal Education (NFE)

These programs were designed to meet the requirements of children, including girl child who are
poor and burdened with extensive work responsibilities. It is the most rapidly expanding sector in
education and also more flexible . One of the main reasons for the success of the NFEs has been
their linking of education with employment.

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c. Education Scheme Guarantee

Undertaken in Madhya Pradesh in 1997, this scheme has seen significant success over the last 5
years. Some of the key aspects of this program worth mentioning has been:

a)Extensive community involvement that took care of the school compounds and controlled the day
to day administrative matters of the school.

b) Incentive to keep the children enrolled in school.

c) The local nature and accessibility of school have made them a safe and low cost option for
female students.

Women and Health

Apart from education, healthcare availability is highly skewed against women .Several rampant
health concerns have been identified and these have been found to have a detrimental effect on the
economic and social status of women in India. The prominent cause for maternal death is anaemia
apart from resulting in physically weak children.

According to NFHS-II, every second woman in India suffers from some degree of anaemia , with
almost 2 percent of women suffering from severe anaemia. According to IIPS 2000, 35 percent and
15 percent of women are affected by mild and moderate levels of anaemia respectively; Deficiency
of iron is the sole cause of pregnancy related problems affecting about 50 to 90% of pregnant
women. This is particularly notable among women inhabitants of eastern and northeastern states
and accounts for almost 20 % of all maternal deaths in India (World Bank 1996)

The lack of prenatal care and adequate healthcare facilities during pregnancy has been the major
cause for most maternal deaths and is estimated at 437 such deaths per100 child births. In the
agricultural sector, women and adolescent girls perform arduous jobs that involve immense
physical exertion, both within and outside the household .It results in serious effects on their
physical health, coupled with high rates of malnutrition.

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More work means poorer health? Women in Hyderabad slums.

One study on the impact of women’s work on both their own health and that of their children,
undertaken in slum areas of Hyderabad, produced disturbing results. Womens morbidity increased
with the additional work load and the fact that the hours spent on housework and child care (as
much as six hours a day) did not reduce. The small increase in their earnings were largely
swallowed up in paying for private health care for their children (where payment was associated
with .superior. services), while the women themselves relied upon the Maternity and Child centres
run by the Government. These centres, however, are not equipped to deal with work-related
illnesses, and were therefore of little or no assistance. (National Institute of Nutrition, 1993).

Similar studies are currently being undertaken elsewhere - for example, in Baroda (Guja rat) and
Haryana - on women.s productive work and child health. They emphasize that work can adversely
affect women.s health.

Biasness in access to Healthcare

According to the National Survey data (1990) , there exist strong gender biases in access to
healthcare facilities .Female children from Orissa,Haryana and Punjab have been found to be the
most disadvantaged. Given the high nutritional biases, it has been found that girls have taken
longer time to recover from illnesses have also been bought for treatment at a much later stage of
their diseases than boys.Nutritional biases therefore have resulted in longer time for recovery from
illnesses with higher rates of mortality within hospitals. These factors have acted as serious
impediments for the girl child to be economically productive in the long run. In terms of
undertaking regular long term employment, the ability to function at optimal capacity have been
reduced substantially. Infact, a government sector company had cited such factors, to explain the
growing retrenchment of a large number of female employees, as well as their dismissals
(Krishnaraj 2000).In analysis of her experience to introduce better feeding and nutritional
practices,Bhandari observed that due to the strong influence of traditional gender biases in feeding
practices, the effect of educating low income mothers was minimally effective. She also noted that
the acceptance of safer feeding practices depended on the gender of the child .She concluded that
without the overall improvements in education and empowerment,this will not be effective.

10
Another important factor taking a heavy toll on the health of women, has been the increased
frequency in childbearing that has often been a projection of the predominant preference for son in
our society(Dasgupta and Bhat1998:Murthiet al 1995;Srinivasan 1996 among others).According to
IIPS 2000 ,during childbirth, serious complications that gets commonly reported are ,anaemia ,
premature babies and associated problems. As reported above, the prominent cause for maternal
death among these is anaemia apart from resulting in physically weak children.

Water and Sanitation

The availability of adequate supply of water and proper sanitation grossly affects the health of
women .In the rural areas inadequate water provision considerably affects women and their
children. The task of collecting water from distant sources has exclusively become the work of
women. Poor water supply facilities coupled with scarce water resources has created a considerable
burden of labour for women.This has also contributed to poor health conditions of women within
households. Widespread discrimination among Dalit women in the access of water is a major
problem in the rural areas. Lack of proper sanitation facilities is ,however , less widespread than
water supply, but still it is a major problem particularly faced by women in rural areas. Particular
focus is needed in this case to find a possible solution to this problem in the long run , so as to
ensure adequate supply of water to Dalit communities . Moreover in the urban areas, it is important
to focus on the specific needs of the women in areas of their living and work so as to ensure proper
facilities for sanitation.

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 TAMIL NADU INTEGRATED NUTRITION PROGRAMME (TINP)

With the help of credit from the International Development Agency (IDA), the World Bank’s concessionary
lending agency, the TINP started in 1981 in a few districts of Tamil Nadu as a nutrition and health program,
aiming to improving the health status of pre-school children and pregnant mothers. The program used a
locally recruited community nutrition worker and a helper. Evaluations of TINP agreed on its success.
Malnutrition rates fell by 20-55% (Subbarao 1992; Balachander, 1993). The project has since gone on to
cover most of rural Tamil Nadu in its incarnation as TINP II. Groups of women beneficiaries (100 groups
overall, meeting 9 times of more per year) organize centre, help overcome resistance to the project, increase
participation in activities, publicize and mobilize the community.
The key lesson that TINP teaches us is that a limited package of health-related nutritional interventions can be
operationally feasible in rural India in a cost-effective manner through the medium of local village-based
para-professionals and that such packages could have a substantial impact on the health status of children.

Source: Parikh, K. (ed) India Development Report 1999-00, New Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 1999

Women’s Participation in Decision making.

Women’s presence in various households, communities and regions gets manifested by

various types of rituals, practices and structures of power. Often the decisions are not their
own but governed by others, who take decisions on their behalf.

Regarding women’s participation in public decision- making, a positive trend was observed
between 1977 and 1999 with an average of 55 percent of women voters. Among the few
women contestants, the winning rate has been higher than that of men. During the 1990s,
nearly million women had participated at different levels of election of village panchayats
and urban municipalities. This was possible due to the 73rd and 74th Amendment of the

12
Constitution of India. This participation of women opened up several opportunities for their
advancement.

Gender Empowerment

Through the process of gender empowerment, women can overcome several obstacles that they
face in education, health, employment and decision making process. Economic Empowerment of
women implies their participation in economically productive activities, control over income and
assets such as land, industries and independent access to savings and credits. In this context, it is
worth mentioning that numerous measures have been initiated by the Government of India and
State Governments for their economic empowerment so as to raise the status of women in the
society. Diverse range of plans, policies and constitutional obligations have emphasized on the
empowerment of women. The endeavor have been initiated with the predominant goal of helping
women become more active participants in the process of development. Government of India has
been an active supporter in this case through the establishment of various programmes like:

i) National Commission for Women

The National Commission for Women was set up as statutory body in January, 1992, under the
(National Commission for Women Act, 1990 (Act No. 20 of 1990 of Govt. of India) to :

• Review the Constitutional and Legal safeguards for women ;

• Recommend remedial legislative measures ;
• Facilitate redressal of grievances and
• Advise the Government on all policy matters affecting women.

In keeping with its mandate, the Commission initiated various steps to improve the status of
women and worked for their economic empowerment during the year under report. The
Commission completed its visits to all the States and UTs, except Lakshdweep and prepared
Gender Profiles to assess the status of women and their empowerment. It received a large
number of complaints and acted suo-moto in several cases, to provide speedy justice. It took up
the issue of child marriage, sponsored legal awareness programmes, Parivarik Mahila Lok
Adalats and reviewed laws such as Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961, PNDT Act 1994, Indian
Penal Code 1860 and the National Commission for Women Act, 1990 to make them more
stringent and effective. It organized workshops/consultations, constituted expert committees on

13
 economic empowerment of women, conducted workshops/seminars for gender awareness and
took up publicity campaign against female foeticide, violence against women, etc. in order to
generate awareness in the society against these social evils.

Source: National Commission for Women, 2000 – 2006

ii) The National Credit Fund for Women or the Rashtriya Mahila Kosh (RMK)

The fund was set up in March 1993 as an independent registered society by the Department of
Women & Child Development in Government of India’s Ministry of Human Resource
Development with an initial corpus of Rs. 310,000,000 .Its aim was not to replace the banking
sector but to fill the gap between what the banking sector offers and what the poor need.

Its main objectives have been:

To provide or promote the provision of micro-credit to poor women for income generation
activities or for asset creation.

• To adopt a quasi-informal delivery system, which is client friendly, uses simple and
minimal procedures, disburses quickly and repeatedly, has flexibility of approach, links
thrift and savings with credit and has low transaction costs both for the borrower and for
the lender.
• To demonstrate and replicate participatory approaches in the organization of women’s
groups for thrift and savings and effective utilization of credit.
• To use the group concept and the provision of credit as an instrument of women’s
empowerment, socio-economic change and development.
• To cooperate with and secure the cooperation of the Government of India, State
Governments, Union Territory administrations, credit institutions, industrial and
commercial organizations, NGOs and others in promoting the objectives of the Kosh.
• To disseminate information and experience among all these above agencies in the
Government and non-government sectors in the area of microfinance for poor women.
• To receive grants, donations, loans, etc., for the furtherance of the aims and objectives of
the Kosh.

The Kosh has three main roles:

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Wholesaling Role - it acts as a wholesaling apex organization for channelising funds from
government and donors to retailing intermediate microfinance organisations (IMOs).

[The Kosh has so far received only a one-time grant from government and has not needed to raise
funds from any other sources].

Market Development Role -

It develops the supply side of the micro finance market by offering institution building support to
new and existing-but-inexperienced IMOs by structures of incentives, transfers of technology,
training of staff and other non-financial services -

The Kosh realises that it can play a value adding wholesaling role only when a sufficiently large
and well established micro finance sector already exists - this depends on the number of IMOs and
the sustainability of IMOs - subsidized institution building increases the equity of any IMO as much
as grants do - large and premature disbursement of funds to the IMO can reduce the effectiveness of
any institution building effort].

Advocacy Role - whereby RMK can act as an advocate or agent for influencing development and
micro-finance policy and creating a more enabling policy and legal environment for spread of
micro-finance activities in India. Being a creation and a representative of the government, RMK has
a particular advantage in this area.

Source : Department of Women And Child Development

iii) Balika Samridhi Yojana

Was launched by Govt. of India w. e. f. 15-8-97 with the following objectives:-

1. To change negative family and community attit udes towards the girl child at birth and toward

2. To improve enrolment and retention of girls in school.

3. To raise the age at marriage of girls.

4. To assist the girl to undertake income generating activities.

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Main Components of BALIKA Samridhi Yojana

From the start of the scheme, the mothers of newborn girl children were given a post delivery
grant of Rs. 500/- each in cash as a gift from the Government. There was also provision for
Annual Scholarships to the girl child for attending school. But the details /guidelines for
scholarships were not received.

During 1999-2000, Govt. of India recast the scheme and the benefits and means of delivery have
been redesigned to ensure that financial benefits accrue to the girl child. Now the girl children
eligible under BSY are entitled to the following benefits:-

1. A post birth grant amount of Rs. 500/-.

2. When the girl child born on or after 15-08-1997 and covered under BSY starts attending
the school, she will become entitled to annual scholarship as under for each successfully
completed year of schooling:-

Balika Samridhi Yojna is being implemented in both rural and urban areas.Under it , girl children
belonging to families below the poverty line are given benefit, who are born on or after 15th
August,1997. The benefits are restricted to two girl children in a household irrespective of number
of children in the household.

This scheme is being implemented through ICDS infrastructure in rural areas and through
functionaries of Health Department in urban areas. The application forms are available with
Anganwadi Workers in the villages and with Health functionaries in urban areas. The beneficiaries
are required to submit the filled in applications to these functionaries.

iv) National Policy for Empowerment of Women

Goal and Objectives

The goal of this Policy is to bring about the advancement, development and empowerment of
women. The Policy will be widely disseminated so as to encourage active participation of all
stakeholders for achieving its goals. Specifically, the objectives of this Policy include :

i. Creating an environment through positive economic and social policies for full
development of women to enable them to realize their full potential

16
 ii. The de-jure and de-facto enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedom
by women on equal basis with men in all spheres – political, economic, social,
cultural and civil
iii. Equal access to participation and decision making of women in social, political
and economic life of the nation
iv. Equal access to women to health care, quality education at all levels, career and
vocational guidance, employment, equal remuneration, occupational health and
safety, social security and public office etc.
v. Strengthening legal systems aimed at elimination of all forms of discrimination
against women
vi. Changing societal attitudes and community practices by active participation and
involvement of both men and women.
vii. Mainstreaming a gender perspective in the development process.
viii. Elimination of discrimination and all forms of violence against women and the
girl child; and
ix. Building and strengthening partnerships with civil society, particularly women’s
organizations.

Source: Department of Women and Child Development

The role of Non Governmental organizations (NGOs) in empowering women

The increasingly important role played by NGOs cannot be outflanked .Presently over 7000 NGOs,
working under the umbrella of government support in the health sector, have been very successful
in implementing community based programs .These have been found to have a positive impact on
the health status of women.The increasing success of these programs can be attributed to the
following factors:
i) Involvement of several women members of the local community
ii) Establishing a successful scheme of incentives that enhances participation in health initiatives of
women.
iii) High levels of interaction and education at the community level of women.
In this context, a study of the incentive schemes of successful NGO projects like the Swasthya
Community Health Centres or the Tamil Nadu Integrated Nutrition Project would help us to create
effective, directed health programs in the future. The involvement of the NGO’s in areas where

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Government support is not quite effective is critical for the development of this sector. Effectively
utilizing the community health systems along with creating a systematic , centralized and unified
health effort can be made possible through alliances between the NGOs, the private sector, the
government etc .

In India , there are almost over 18,000 voluntary organizations registered with the Government of
India .This also includes several thousand non-government development organizations.However ,it
has been observed that among these thousand NGOs the activities of only a small proportion (less
than about 20% ) are focused rightly . There has been a high concentration of women NGOs in the
Western states than in the North.However in the North, there has been a low density of NGOs
inspite of the gender disparities prevailing there.

The key areas of activities of NGOs are in economic support and services , health and family
planning, social, political and legal issues, infrastructure provision and support functions like
training, research and networking .Over the recent years, radical changes have been observed in the
thinking and approach of a number of NGOs and women’s organizations .Income-generation
schemes such as pickle making, sewing etc, as practiced in the past have been found to have a
limited impact, as they increase women’s workload for little or no return.

In the health sector, NGOs have been particularly critical of the priority given to some of the family
planning programmes by government and donor agencies and the lack of adequate provision for
women’s general health needs. There is also a growing interest among women (from Dalit or tribal
background) for the use of non-allopathic medicines in the rural areas, having prudent knowledge
and skill.

In infrastructure development, focus has been increased on the provision of water, adequate
sanitation facilities and the control of women over the management of these resources.

With a long record of work in rural communities, some NGOs are now seeking ways of securing
the life of rural poor, particularly Dalit women by providing them access to land and secured
livelihood. These programs have resulted in an increased asset base of poor rural women
enlightening and empowering women. The involvement of the NGO’s in areas where Government
support is not quite effective is critical for the development of this sector. Effectively utilizing the

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community health systems along with creating a systematic, centralized and unified health effort
can be made possible through alliances between the NGOs, the private sector, the government etc .

Mid Term Participatory Evaluation of Integrated Community

Health and Development Programme, Akalpur, Jammu

The Integrated Community Health and Development Programme Akalpur (ICHDPA) has being implemented
in 10 villages in Akalpur, Jammu and the duration of the project is 4 years (2002-2005).The programme was
primarily targeted towards women and children of these 10 villages. Health Programmes, Education children
of these 10 villages. Health Programmes, Education Programmes, Women Empowerment Programmes, Inc
Generating Programmes & Infrastructure Development were the various activities initiated under the project.
Nirmal Mata Health Centre (NHRC), Akalpur, Jammu, which is affiliated to Catholic Social Service Society
(CSSS), Jammu, is implementing this programme.
CSR has done the external mid-term evaluation of this integrated project for Cyriac Elias Voluntary
Association (CEVA), Northern Region Centre (NRO), Ghaziabad. CSR has completed the evaluation in April
2004, which was spanned over a period of 3 months (January-March, 2004). The major objective was to
evaluate the project in terms of need, implementation, efficiency, effectiveness, impact and sustainability.
Through the evaluation process, CSR made an effort to
• Ascertain the progress of the Project and whether it meets the set targets and objectives as laid out in the
Project Proposal.
• Assess the impact of the Project activities in terms of the development and quality of life of the
target groups.
• Assess the sustainability of the activities beyond the Project period.
• Ascertain the efficiency and effectiveness of the organization in terms of its monitoring, planning,
implementation and the financial management.
• Suggest strategies and interventions to further strengthen the project implementation process.The
methodology adopted for the evaluation was participatory in nature, entailing involvement of all the
stakeholders, beneficiaries and implementers of the project. This included review of documents, surveys,
focused group discussions, case studies and interviews of key personnel. Specific PRA techniques were
also used to obtain information from different stakeholders of the project.
Source:Center For Social Research.

Conclusion

From the above discussions, it is clear that socio-economic biases are still prevalent in the
Indian economy and society. Although efforts are being taken by the Government of India

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to cope with this issue, still it has been found that to a large extent women have limited
means to seek empowerment, for seeking ways to with their deprivation. Moreover, the
prevailing gender biases have been found to be magnifying, even after more than a decade
of the New Economic Policy. The economic status of women have been adversely affected
by factors like rising wage differentials between men an women, women’s marginalization
in the informal sector, rising unemployment rates owing to shift from sectors like
agriculture and even traditional female sectors of employment. Moreover, another
noticeable major trend has been the shift of government subsidies from rural areas and
agriculture towards the urban industrial sector. The nature of subsidies have been found to
be biased towards the upliftment of men rather than that of women. The problem is further
intensified by the reduction of government expenditure on education, health and social
services. Although the problem has been addressed to some extent by the rise of NGOs,
still a serious concern is the falling public expenditure and decrease in subsidies. Adequate
research would help us to identify the other problems that are related to women’s
inadequacy in the provision of healthcare facilities and gender specific physical
vulnerabilities (e.g. anemia among pregnant women).This has been further exacerbated by
an increase in rural poverty and a fall in the healthcare expenditures. In the healthcare
sector, the impact of the rise of NGOs can be expected to be a long term phenomena.
Future analysis can be more successful with a more case based approach and study of
incentives and organizational structures. Moreover, voluntary community participation
among women can be made possible, only if particular attention is given to the nature of
incentives by NGOs. In this context, it can be said that in recent years, positive results have
been noticed in health care provisions due to NGOs initiatives. Several gender related
issues have be solved by education, thereby leading to better employment opportunities
Programs linked with empowerment and employment of wome n are increasingly focusing
on the quality of education which would pave the way for the upliftment of women,
economically and socially, in the long run

References:

1. Rai, S., ‘Fractioned states and negotiated boundaries, gender and law in India’, in H.
Afshar and S. Barrientos, Women, Globalization and Fragmentation in the

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Developing World , New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999.

2. Haddad, L., and Smith, L., Explaining child malnutrition in developing countries,
International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington D.C., 1997

3. Rawal, V. and Swaminathan, M., ‘Primary education for all’, in K. Parikh (ed), India’s
Development Report, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000

4. Gautam Bhan , India Gender Profile , Report commissioned for Sida, 2001.

5. 2003. Gender Biases and Discrimination against Women: What do Different Indicators Say?
New Delhi: UNIFEM.6.

6. Wazir, Rekha (ed.). 2000. The Gender Gap in Basic Education: NGOs as Change Agents. New
Delhi: Sage.

7. Preet Rustogi , Significance of Gender-related Development Indicators, An Analysis of Indian

States,2001.

8. Centre For Social Resaerch,2004

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