Southern States - Andhra Pradesh-Hyderabad   

Kalam calls for empowerment of women

By Our Staff Reporter

HYDERABAD Dec.13. The President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, has called for empowerment of women, who form 48.3 per cent of the population as per the 2001 Census, particularly entrepreneurs, as industry is one of the focal points in national development.

Inaugurating the Centre for Entrepreneurship Development of the Association of Lady Entrepreneurs of Andhra Pradesh (ALEAP) at Gajularamaram village, near Kukatpally, on Friday, he said the country's GDP of 5 per cent had to be doubled in the next few years to enable it to become developed by 2020.

For this to be achieved, agriculture and food-processing industries had to be given priority. Simultaneously, self- sufficiency had to be achieved in education, health, information/communication technology and infrastructure, Dr. Kalam stressed. He recalled that the Prime Minister, A.B.Vajpayee, had also recently laid stress on national focus on these core sectors.

Elaborating his call for women's enpowerment, the President pointed out that women could lead and manage. "When women are empowered society becomes stable. Woman is the leader of the family and manages the family. Industry is nothing but a bigger family with different areas of specialisation.''

Dr. Kalam praised the ALEAP president, K. Ramadevi's dream of establishing by 2005-06 one hundred estates with 4,000 industries. He lauded the association for setting up industries manufacturing a wide range of products.

The President suggested that the message of ALEAP and its success stories could be replicated elsewhere in the country. The ALEAP could organise workshops for women entrepreneurs from other States. So taken in was Dr. Kalam by the ALEAP concept that he expressed a desire to converse with some entrepreneurs. He made enquiries about their areas of activity.

In his address, the Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, counselled women to develop self-confidence. "If you have self- confidence then you can do wonders.'' He said women entrepreneurs if they perform well could dominate men.

Mr. Naidu recalled that many of the 60 lakh members of the 4.5 lakh DWACRA groups, with a revolving fund of Rs. 450 crores, were poor but working hard.

He assured the State Government's cooperation to ALEAP in establishing industries by its members.

Earlier, Ms. Ramadevi, welcoming the gathering, said the Centre for Entrepreneur Development had trained 2,850 persons of whom 50 per cent had turned into entrepreneurs. The vision of ALEAP was to establish a women bank-mutual credit guarantee scheme, a trade centre for women entrepreneurs, an exclusive industrial estate, incubators and have an ALEAP brand.

Jyoti Rao, secretary of ALEAP, proposed a vote of thanks.

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