1. An initiative by:
Team Initiators.
Sneha Pande,
Saurabh Tomar,
Anurag Amar,
Nitin Chamoli,
Shubham Naithani.
From Graphic Era University, Dehradun.
Uttarakhand, India.
1)Introduction
stating the facts.
2)Policies already
in action and the
criticism.
3)The proposed
model
R.U.
E.M.P.O.W.E.R.E.
D.?
A)Main areas
of work.
B)The Crux of
the Model.
C)How Much
Does “It”
Cost?
D)What All
Do We Need?
4)Conclusion!

2. INTRODUCTION PORTRAYING SOME FACTS!
The roles a woman plays in various aspects of life are many. At home, on
job, in society, as mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, learners, workers,
citizens and leaders.
But are they being treated fairly and equally? Are they empowered
enough by the society? Let’s have a look.
If you think a lot has been done for women empowerment, think again!.
Cases of female-infanticides are still on rise (both
reported and un-reported).
Certain section of the society does not send girls
to schools once she attains puberty.
Some are not sent to schools ever.
Numbers of pre-age marriages are also significant.
Dowry related harassment and deaths are still in
news now and then.
Harassment at work place, sexual or otherwise,
though mainly unreported, is significant.
Sati is still being practiced in many villages across
the country.
The legislative strength of women is still less than
15%.
The crimes against women are on the rise.
Sex Ratio
933!
Literacy Male 75.85,
Literacy Female 54.16!
Only 22% of women in
rural India were recorded
as workers!
32% - with zero education, 42% -
primary school education, 57%-
high school and college
education!
9 % of women in
execute bodies of
political parties, 3 % of
women as Supreme
Court Judges and 7 %
of women in civil
service!India also haw
highest rate of
violence during
pregnancy - 50
percent were kicked,
beaten or hit when
pregnant!

3.  Ladli Scheme has been implemented to encourage education of girls and the Kishori
Scheme for providing adolescent girls a healthy and disease-free life.
 The Constitution Framers were very much conscious of the problem of women
empowerment hence they ensured that the Principle of Gender Equality is enshrined in the
preamble to the constitution.
 Various schemes like Indira Mahila Yojana, Rashtriya Mahila Kosh, Mahila Samridhi Yojana,
Self help groups at Panchayat level etc are present.
 The establishment of National Women’s Commission and State Women’s Commissions were
important milestones in the direction of Women Empowerment in India.
 The National Policy for the Empowerment of women (2001) was an important step taken by
the Government of the time for accelerating the pace of women empowerment.
The list is long.
In its first ever gender gap study covering 58 nations, the World Economic Forum has ranked
India a lowly 53. The report titled 'The Women's Empowerment: Measuring the Global
Gender Gap' measures the gap between women and men in five critical areas like economic
participation, economic opportunity, political empowerment, access to education and access
to reproductive health care. The report is based on United Nations Development Fund for
Women's findings on global patterns of inequality between men and women. The low
ranking reflects the large disparity between men and women in all five areas of the index.
We call ourselves the next super-power. But, can we be acknowledged as a super-power or
as a matter of fact, a developed nation, when there is such discrimination in the society? No.

4. The Proposed Model
R.
M.
U.
E.
P.
D.
E.
E.
W.
O.
R.
RURAL
URBAN
ECONOMICALLY
MODELLED
POLICY
OF
WOMEN
EMPOWERMENT via
RESEARCH &
ECONOMIC
DEVELOPEMENT
R.U. E.M.P.O.W.E.R.E.D.?

5. The Model
Would :
1. Strengthen opportunities for post-primary
education for girls while simultaneously meeting
commitments to universal primary education.
2. Guarantee sexual and reproductive health and
rights.
3. Invest in infrastructure to reduce women’s and
girls’ time burdens.
4. Revised taxation for women.
5. Guarantee women’s and girls’ property and
inheritance rights.
6. Eliminate gender inequality in employment by
decreasing women’s reliance on informal
employment, closing gender gaps in earnings,
and reducing occupational segregation.
7. Increase women’s share of seats in national
parliaments and local governmental bodies.
8. Combat violence against girls and women.
1)EDUCATION: Evidence suggests that among all levels of education,
secondary and higher levels of education have the greatest payoff for
women’s empowerment.
Primary, secondary, and tertiary education are not separate components
but are an integral part of
an education system.
This will be done by making schooling more affordable by :
- reducing costs and offering targeted scholarships,
- building secondary schools close to girls’ homes, and making schools girl-friendly,
- the content, quality, and relevance of education must be improved through curriculum reform, teacher training, and
other actions,
- Education must serve as the vehicle for transforming attitudes, beliefs, and entrenched social norms that perpetuate
discrimination and inequality.
Let us now
take a point
wise look at
all the
mentioned
methods
covering their
advantages!

6. 2) HEALTH CARE : A large body of evidence shows that sexual and reproductive health and rights are central to women’s
ability to build their capabilities, take advantage of economic and political opportunities, and control their destinies.
For this reason, our model has identified guaranteeing sexual and reproductive health and rights as a strategic priority for
achieving gender equality and empowering women.
- At a minimum, national public health systems must provide quality family planning services, emergency obstetric care,
safe abortion, post-abortion care, prevention and treatment of sexually transmitted infections (including HIV), and
interventions to reduce malnutrition and anaemia.
- Outside the health system sexuality education programs are needed to lay the foundation for improved sexual and
reproductive health outcomes.
-Ultimately, these interventions must be supported by an enabling policy and political environment that guarantees
women’s and girls’ sexual and reproductive rights.
3) PROPER INFRASTRUCTURE : Women’s and girls’ ability to participate in educational, productive, and civic activities and
thus to empower themselves economically and politically is often limited by a household division of labour that assigns
to women and girls the bulk of the responsibility for everyday household maintenance tasks.
For poor women and girls this responsibility is made more onerous by the underinvestment in public infrastructure that
characterizes most low-income countries.
3 types of infrastructure are particularly critical to reduce women’s time burden: transport, water and sanitation, and
energy.
- The time spent by women and girls on routine tasks can be reduced dramatically by the provision of accessible and
affordable sources of transport systems, energy & water and sanitation systems.
They can increase women’s chances of finding employment or training, thereby increasing income, accessing healthcare,
and approaching town and district government headquarters to seek redress for their problems.
The probability that girls will attend school also increases. These projects must also address safety and security needs.
Providing adequate street lighting and ensuring that the location of bus stops and terminals are not remote or secluded
are examples of ways to address these needs.
- Alternative sources of energy should be encouraged like bio fuels, instead of coal and “chulhas”.
- Women’s participation in the design and implementation of infrastructure projects can help to overcome many
problems. For instance, let's take the sanitation and water sector, where women play key roles as users and managers.
As primary collectors of water, women have key information about such issues as seasonal availability from various
sources, water quality, and individual and communal rights to those sources. Now, if these women are incorporated in
project design, the information that they will provide could also improve project outcomes.

7. 4) TAXATION Higher tax exemption limits: The Equal Remuneration Act, 1976, guarantees equal pay for equal work, but ground
realities are a bit different.
A survey by the World Economic Forum in 2009 not only pointed out wage gaps between men and women, but also showed that
most women employees were present only at the entry and middle levels of management. It was difficult for them to break the
glass ceiling.
Given the social pattern in India and the cultural ethos, a better tax treatment for women is justified.
- Tax policies can provide for a standard deduction against the taxable salary income or professional/business income if the
woman is self-employed.
- A separate working mother's child relief can be made available to those earning less than Rs. 1 lac approx per year, as is already
available in Singapore, it would be based on a percentage of the
mother's income and this percentage increases with the number of children, restricting it to 2 children. This would encourage
married women to remain in the workforce after having children.
- When a woman re-joins after a gap of at least five years, it should be made possible that she can claim a tax credit of a certain
amount of money, say upto 50k+, this would relieve her and also encourage mothers to join workforce again!
- A higher deduction of tax should be given to those companies that employ greater amount of women in their workforce.
- Delhi and some States like Punjab, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh offer a discounted rate of stamp duty if the property is registered in
a women's name.
For instance, the stamp duty charges in Delhi are 10% if the property is registered in the name of a male buyer, 8% for joint
registration and 4% if the property is registered solely in the name of a woman. This practice should be made mandatory for all the
states.
5) LAND OWNERSHIP : It can act as a protective factor for women against domestic violence. Research in
Kerala, India, found that 49 percent of women with no property reported physical violence, whereas only 7
percent of women with property reported physical violence. Several types of changes are necessary within
countries to ensure women’s property rights: amending and harmonizing statutory and customary laws,
promoting legal literacy, supporting women’s organizations that can help women make land claims, and
recording women’s share of land or property.
6) Gender inequalities exist in entry to work, conditions at work, and in exit from the labour market.
-Another avenue for increasing income for poor women is through microenterprise development. Microfinance programs
have been a popular economic strategy over the past two decades to assist poor and landless women to enter self-
employment or start their own business.
In order to have greater impact, however, microfinance programs need to be coupled with other types of products and
services, including training, technology transfer, business development services, and marketing assistance, among others.
More attention also needs to be given to innovative savings and insurance instruments for low-income women.
-Women live longer than men and in most regions are more likely to spend time as widows, when they are more vulnerable to
poverty than men. Because pension entitlements are predominantly through work, women’s responsibilities for unpaid care
work, as well as their predominance in informal employment and seasonal and part-time jobs, restrict their access to the
pension-covered sector. o protect retired women, it is important that the design of old age security systems is revised.
E
Q
U
A
L
I
T
Y

8. 7)REPRESENTATION IN THE POLITICAL SCENARIO : Gender quotas and reservations are an effective policy tool to increase women’s
representation in political bodies.
-Women’s organizations can mobilize a political constituency and pressure governments to implement specific measures to ensure that
women are well represented in political parties and national decision making bodies.
8)CRIME : Although no single intervention will eliminate violence against women, a combination of infrastructure, legal, judicial,
enforcement, education, health, and other service-related actions can significantly reduce such violence and ameliorate its negative
consequences.
The Indicators
of the Model.
These shall
record the
growth and
progress of our
venture!
• The ratio of girls to boys enrolled in primary and secondary
education.
• The ratio of literate females to males among 15- to 24-year-
olds.
• Hours per day (or year) women and men spend fetching
water and collecting fuel.
• Land ownership by male, female, or jointly held.
• The share of women in wage employment in the non
agricultural sector.
• Share of women in employment, both wage and self-
employment, by type.
• The proportion of seats held by women in national
parliaments.
• Prevalence of domestic violence.
What we suggest is that this model should be implemented and given a time duration of 10 years to bring about a
change. 10 years will certainly serve the purpose and the progress will be visible.

9. The areas where basic economic help will be
required are-
• Providing care services (for children, the
elderly, the sick, and people with
disabilities) to allow women to work.
• Providing training to female candidates in
elections at the local, regional, and national
level.
• Preventing violence against women
through awareness campaigns and
education, hotlines, and neighbourhood
support groups.
• Strengthening national women’s arenas
through increased fiscal allocation and
staffing of ministries of women’s affairs and
appointment of females in other ministries.
• Undertaking comprehensive programs to
train women judges, bureaucrats, land
registration officers, and police officers.
• Investing in data collection and monitoring
activities to track gender outcomes.
India is a developing country, so the rough estimates of
costs will be :
- effective education would be roughly Rs 1500 per capita
annually.
- setting up effective health care services would cost around
Rs 2000 per capita annually.
- Provision of water and sanitation will be around Rs 600 to
700 per capita annually.
- The over-all cost of other steps/methods to curb violence,
ensure social security and end gender bias would cost
around Rs 3000 to 4000 per capita annually.

10. Committed group of
change makers from
governmental as well
as NGOs.
Technical Assistance
which is cost effective
optimized as well as
environment friendly.
Financial help and co-
operation from the
government.
Punishment for
defaulters.
Strict Monitoring and
Accountability.
Basic changes as well as
revision of existing
fundamental policy.
What All Do We Need?
Holistic progress of the model and hence
bringing about “Women Empowerment”.

11. You take one step and we, “The Team Initiators”, promises to cover the rest
of the steps.
Problems are
many.
But, together we can and we will.
Much of what is said here has already been known for several decades, but
it has been difficult to translate that knowledge into development policy and
practice at the scale required to bring about fundamental transformation in
the distribution of power, opportunity, and outcomes for both women and
men.
The next 10 years would provide a new window of opportunity to take
action on a national scale to empower women.
Society must take initiative to create a climate in which there is no gender
discrimination and Women have full opportunities of Self decision making
and participating in the Social, Political and Economic life of the Country
with a sense of equality. Then only the Vedic verse: "Yartra naryastu
pujyante ramante tatra devataha" ,
(Wherever Women is respected, God resides there) would come true.
Thus, wishing for a better world and
aiming to improve the condition of
women we thank you, hoping that
you would surely join our hands in
this journey.
Thank you for the opportunity : Team Initiators.