Page 75 - MWG-011_Neat

72 Women in the Economy (MWG-011)
The first FYP however did not say anything specific about women’s development. The planners laid
stress on promoting education of women through enrolling large number of girls. Although, the Hindu
women were protected in marriage and inheritance through social legislations such as the Hindu
Succession Act but it was not thought to be enough to bring about women’s emancipation.
The Second FYP talked of the activities of the Central Social Welfare Board like promoting women’s
education and employing more women teachers in schools were stressed upon. The labor sector
recognized the need of women’s workers by enacting the Maternity Benefit Act in 1961.
The Third FYP (1961-66) continued to lay emphasis on the welfare aspect of women. The Fourth and
Fifth FYP did not innovate any schemes on women.
During the Sixth Five Year Plan (1980 – 1985), there was a shift in the approach from welfare to
development. The plan adopted a multi-pronged strategy for development of women, particularly
focusing on three core sectors namely, health, education and employment. For the first time in the
history of planning in India, the plan document included a chapter on ‘Women and development’,
which emphasized economic independence for women, access to health care and family planning.
In Seventh Five Year Plan (1985 – 1990) Department of Women and Child Development was set
up in 1985 as a national coordinating body for women’s programmes and Women’s Cells were created
in several ministries. The major objective was to raise the economic and social status of women and
facilitate their mainstreaming in the national development agenda. One of the significant steps was to
promote the concept of ‘beneficiary oriented schemes’ which extended direct benefits to women. In
1989 State sponsored programmes such as Mahila Samkhya, run by women’s organizations were
started in different regions of the country.
During the Eighth Five Year Plan (1992-1997), the focus was on human development which was
inclusive of the development of women. It promised to ensure flow of benefits to women from general
development programmes so that women become equal partners and participants in the development
process.
At the time of ninth Five Year Plan (1997-2002), two significant conceptual strategies were
adopted. First, ‘empowerment of women’ and second was ‘convergence of services’ in women specific
and women related sectors. To this effect, ‘Women Component Plan’ was to be adopted through which
form all general development sectors, not less than 30% of funds/benefits should to flow to women.
Women components in successive FYPs: The tenth Five Year Plan (2002- 2007) called for the
three-pronged strategy focusing on social empowerment, economic empowerment and promoting
gender justice.
Social Empowerment – Create an enabling environment for women by adopting various policies and
programmes for development of women. Provide easy and equal access to all the basic, minimum
services so as to enable women to realize their full potential.
• Economic empowerment – Ensure provision of training, employment and income generation
activities with both forward and backward linkages, with the ultimate objective of making all
women economically independent and self-reliant.
• Gender justice – Eliminate all forms of gender discrimination and thus, enable women to
enjoy not only de jure (legal provisions) but also de facto (in practice) rights and fundamental
freedom at par with men in all spheres of life namely political, economic, social, civil and
cultural.
For the Tenth Five Year Plan, the Planning Commission constituted three working groups to focus (1)
empowerment of women, (2) child development and (3) improving nutritional status of population
with special focus on vulnerable groups.
The main recommendations of the Working Group on Empowerment of Women are as follows:
• The State to recognize people’s entitlements in the back drop of market driven forces and
ensure conditions for achieving these entitlements.
• Design strategic interventions that will bring about holistic empowerment of women so that
access to benefits of development are not conditioned by prevailing social discrimination
against women.
• Step up investment in social sectors and focus on strategies to increase gains for women and
children.
• Evolve a new set of sustainable strategies to eliminate the regional imbalances in social and
economic development.
• Eliminate gender discrimination and improve the efficacy of Constitutional, Legal provisions.
• Strengthen the emerging grass root level leadership of women.
• Develop measurable goals in different social sectors.
The main objectives of Eleventh Five Year Plan (2007 – 2012) are as follows:
• Increase agricultural GDP growth rate to 4% per year; Create 70 million new work
opportunities; Reduce unemployment to below 5%.