SPEECHES / STATEMENTS 

PM's address at the Women’s Leadership Summit

March 6, 2010, New Delhi

I am very happy to participate in this unique Leadership Summit for Women. I compliment the Ministry for bringing together so many highly talented women who have excelled in various walks of life so that we can all learn from their wisdom, knowledge and experience. I congratulate all these women for their high achievements and hope they will inspire others to greater effort and success.

As you all know, our country has done extremely well in terms of rates of economic growth. But for growth to be meaningful, it must benefit all sections of society, particularly those who are marginalized. This is the reason why our emphasis has been so much on inclusive, social and economic growth. And women have been, as they must be, a special focus of our efforts at inclusiveness.

Gender based disparities have remained the most prevalent form of exclusion globally and, more so, in the developing world. Our country is no exception to this state of affairs. This is particularly a reflection of the stereotyping of women’s role in our society. These disparities are discernable in several indicators of human development such as literacy, maternal and infant mortality rates and life expectancy at birth. While we have shown considerable improvement in such indicators over the years, the progress has been much slower than what we would have liked. Our Maternal Mortality Rate continues to be exceptionally high and shows that access to essential health care services for our women needs a massive improvement. Our female literacy rate is more than 20 percentage points below our male literacy rate and our sex ratio is low at 933. What is even more a matter of concern is that the child sex ratio in the age group 0-6 years has declined from 962 in 1981 to 927 in 2001. The gender disparity on the economic front is reflected in the low female work participation rate of 25.7% vis-à-vis 51.9% for males. Violence against women is also an issue that needs to be addressed. Indeed, we have a long way to go in our efforts towards social, economic and political empowerment of our women.

Providing equal opportunities and an enabling environment for our women is crucial for achieving the goal of women’s empowerment. We, as a government, are committed to this and our commitment is reflected in our policies and programmes. Today nearly half of those who get work under the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme happen to be women. Out of the 3.5 million Self Help Groups formed under the Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana, 2.3 million are those of women. This scheme is being restructured as the National Rural Livelihoods Mission, and I hope that this will improve the scheme and remove some of its deficiencies. I also hope that the restructuring of the Rashtriya Mahila Kosh, which provides collateral-free micro-credit to women Self Help Groups, announced last year will be taken to its logical conclusion soon by the Ministry of Women and Child Development.

The National Rural Health Mission, the Integrated Child Development Services and the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan address health, nutrition and education, the three key components of social empowerment. In the last few years, the number of safe deliveries has increased and the Maternal Mortality and Infant Mortality rates have shown some decline. We have also increased the coverage of Integrated Child Development Services. The disparity in educational attainment between women and men begins at the school. While the participation of girls in schools, relative to boys, has improved over the last 5 to 6 years, their retention in schools continues to be a matter of concern. We have recently launched a national programme for female literacy called Saakshar Bharat to impart functional literacy to about 60 million adult women.

The 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments have revolutionized governance at the grassroots and brought rural women into the fold of political participation. Today, nearly 40% of elected representatives in the village panchayats happen to be women. We hope to give this movement of political participation of women further fillip by increasing the number of seats reserved in Panchayats and City and Town Governments to 50%. Constitutional amendment bills implementing this have already been introduced in our Parliament. More significantly, we are moving towards providing one third reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and State Legislatures.

As we approach the International Women’s Day, let me once against reaffirm our government’s commitment to all round social, economic and political empowerment of our women, whatever effort and resources the task might take. While the Government will continue to anchor this task, civil society and all of those who are role models must also play an important role in shaping public opinion and, thus, aiding in the evolution of collective combined efforts to ensure a more equitable and more productive future for the women of our country.

Let me end by wishing the deliberations of this summit all success. I sincerely hope your deliberations will contribute substantially towards our efforts in improving the lot of women in this great country of ours.