Positive health indicators for women in India -- result of sustained women led development programmes

The author, Vineeta Hariharan says towards economic empowerment and women led development, various schemes have been designed and rolled out by the government.

India is witnessing a watershed moment in gender empowerment, with the latest NHFW survey results reflecting a higher sex ratio for the first time in the history of independent India to 1020:1000. This is a significant benchmark that has been crossed and this takes our country to the league of developed nations in this indicator.

The ratio has been progressively improving from NFHS-3, in 2005-06 (1000:1000) and NHFS-4, in 2015-16 (991:1000).

In any development scenario, positive indicators are always a result of consistent efforts on the ground towards progress. This gender threshold has also been crossed due to the structured programmes of the Government of India towards gender empowerment. This article highlights some of the iconic interventions of the Modi government towards women led development, which have had a direct and positive correlation on the indicators.

“Beti Bachao Beti Padhao” (BBBP) initiative, launched at Panipat in Haryana, in 2015. This has been more than just an energizing slogan, but it is the Modi government’s policy cornerstone with the objectives to prevent gender-biased sex selective elimination, to ensure the survival and protection, education and participation of the girl child by addressing various problems including the declining Child Sex Ratio (CSR) at birth. It is being implemented through a national campaign and focusses on multi-sectoral action in 640 districts after starting off in just 100 districts on a pilot basis, initially. 

Unarguably, however, the landmark achievement of the BJP government to further the cause of “Beti Bachao”, has been the over 11 crore toilets built in rural India under the "Swachh Bharat Abhiyan" scheme. As an outcome, on October 2, 2019, India became open defecation free (ODF). This has, among other things, also led to a dramatic fall in heinous crimes like rapes in the rural hinterland.

Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (PMMVY), is another landmark programme for gender empowerment being a direct benefit transfer (DBT) for pregnant women and lactating mothers to meet enhanced nutritional needs and to partially compensate for wage loss. The scheme crossed a significant milestone by reaching out to one crore beneficiaries in FY 2019-20.

In a direct intervention towards improvement of menstrual hygiene, 6000 Jan Aushadhi Kendras provided around 5 crore sanitary pads at Re. 1, to poor women in rural India.

Aligned with the Education for all focus of this Government, Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana, a programme to facilitate the education of the girl child, has already reached out to more than three crore aspirational young women.

The financial inclusion of women has been a key focus area, and the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana scheme has played a major role in this regard. Currently, over 18 crore women, both in rural and urban areas, for the first time, have access to formal banking and various financial services.

Towards economic empowerment and women led development, various schemes have been designed and rolled out by the Government.  Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana (PMMY) being one of the flagship programmes in this direction in which about 25 crore people have benefitted from the number of total loans sanctioned, in the excess of an amount of Rs 11 lakh crore. Of these 25-crore people, over 70% of the beneficiaries are women, especially those belonging to the marginalised sections of the society. 

Further, under the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana, the skill development initiative of the Government of India for recognition and standardisation of skills, between 2016 to 2020, 40 per cent of the 73 lakh candidates trained were women.

Further, self-employment of women has also been promoted through the Support to Training and Employment Programme for Women (STEP) scheme, which aims to provide skills that give employability to women. 

Another important initiative by the government is the Mahila Shakti Kendra. The scheme came into force in 2017 and it aims to empower rural women with opportunities for skill development, employment, digital literacy, health, and nutrition.

Each of the Mahila Shakti Kendra provides an interface to the rural women so that they can approach the government to avail their entitlements through training and capacity building. It works at four levels, national, state, district and block levels.

Mahila-E-Haat is a bilingual online marketing platform which helps aspiring women entrepreneurs, self-help group, and NGOs to showcase their products to the world. The platform is open to all Indian women above the age of 18.

The government has also taken decisive action to implement adequate social security benefits for women workers. The Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Bill, 2017 is a landmark measure that has increased the maximum period of paid maternity leaves to 26 weeks from the existing period of 12 weeks.

In addition, the recently implemented Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 envisages employment of women in all establishments covering all types of works. Women are now entitled to work at night, subject to their consent, with provisions of safety, holidays, working hours or any other condition as prescribed by appropriate government thus promoting gender equality in workplaces.

The cumulative and sustained impact of all of these initiatives have resulted in positive improvement in the indicators over and above the macro indicator of improved sex ratio. Some of these key health indicators being drop in women married below the legal age to 23.3%, drop in total fertility to 2%, infant mortality to 35.2, neonatal mortality to 24.9 and under five mortality to 41.9.    

From policy reforms to programmatic support to direct interventions, the entire gamut of activities across the spectrum of women led development is being reflected in such positive statistics.

The progress of a nation hinges critically on empowerment of its women and our policies and programmes are moving ahead in the right direction towards a stronger Bharat ki beti and thus a stronger India.

(Author - Vineeta Hariharan, Public Policy Expert, Head Policy and Research, BJP Kerala Mahila Morcha)