Date:07/07/2009 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2009/07/07/stories/2009070754861100.htm

National

Women empowerment schemes to take more time

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: Women will have to wait for a few years before the schemes announced in the 2009-10 budget for their empowerment yield results. Most of the schemes will be implemented over a few years.

Giving a fillip to women’s empowerment, the government proposed to raise the corpus of the Rashtriya Mahila Kosh from Rs.100 crore to Rs.500 crore over the next few years. Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said the Kosh was facilitating credit support or micro-finance to poor women and developed a number of innovative schemes. In recognition of its role as an instrument of socio-economic change and development, the corpus the Kosh would be increased.

Women SHGs

The Swarna Jayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana would be restructured as the National Rural Livelihood Mission to make it universal in application, focused in approach and time-bound for poverty eradication by 2014-15. Stress would be laid on formation of women self-help groups. Besides providing capital subsidy at an enhanced rate, it was proposed to provide interest subsidy to poor households for bank loans up to Rs.1 lakh, Mr. Mukherjee said.

Pointing out that the women’s self-help group movement was bringing about a profound transformation in rural areas, Mr. Mukherjee said the objective was to enrol at least 50 per cent of all rural women as SHG members over the next five years and link these groups to banks.

As for the Integrated Child Development Services Scheme, he said that by March 2012, all services would be extended, with quality, to every child under the age of 6. Another important scheme was the Integrated Child Protection Scheme. It would address the issue of child protection and build a protective environment for children through the government-civil society partnership, for which Rs.60 crore would be allocated.

Reacting to the proposals, the women’s organisations have said the United Progressive Alliance government’s spending on women-related schemes seems to have come down.

The budget is shocking in that it has short-changed women, despite its “rhetoric” of social inclusiveness and equity.

The outlay for the nodal Ministry for Women has decreased from Rs.466.5 crore to Rs.385.13 crore during 2009-10, said a statement issued by the All-India Democratic Women’s Association.