Empowering women essential for empowering society: Dr. Jitendra Singh

Union Minister of State of PMO Dr. Jitendra Singh said on Tuesday that empowering women is essential for empowering the entire humanity.

Addressing a workshop on "Women Empowerment" in the follow-up to International Women's Day at the Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA), here today, Dr. Singh said empowerment of a man may sometimes remain limited to empowerment of a single individual, but empowerment of a woman leads to empowerment of entire family, including the men folk comprising her parents, husband and children.

While appropriate legislations for safety of women in workplace are envisaged every now and then, he said, that what is equally important is that there should be a work-friendly environment, where not only a woman enjoys performing to the best of her potential, but also experiences enhancement of self-esteem through her work.

There are several issues which call for attention with a little more sensitive and innovative approach, said Dr.Singh, and cited the example of neglect of health suffered by a woman because of her inherent training to accord priority to men-folk in the family.

In this context, he referred to increasing prevalence of Diabetes among women because of change in lifestyle, combined stress of workplace and home, increasing incidence of central obesity and other factors.

Dr.Singh referred to a number of innovative measures adopted by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) with a special focus on the well being of women officials, but said, there is still much more required to be done.

"There are a number of issues which come up time and again, like for example, placement or posting of husband-wife couple at a common location and provision for periodically relaxing working hours for women employees to enable them to attend to their domestic obligations, he added.

For all these and related issues, a periodic reassessment and the review is required depending on the changing needs and requirements in a rapidly evolving society like ours, he said.

Dr.Singh mentioned the mid-career scheme for working women scientists which he had introduced as Science and Technology Minister, and said, he would discuss with the officers in the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) whether something similar can be feasible even in case of women civil service officers.