Modi's Schemes To Encourage Entrepreneurship Among Women

As the Narendra Modi government completes two years in office, one of the highlights could be its focus on the country's women. If all goes to plan, India could soon have 1.25 crore women entrepreneurs. The Stand Up India scheme - the government's flagship programme - mandates each government bank branch to give one loan to a woman entrepreneur besides one to a borrower categorized as an SC or ST or even a Dalit.

That's not all. Even the Swachh Bharat programme and the thrust on building toilets are key reforms - which aim to make India cleaner which will lead to better health primarily for women and children. While there are a plethora of hits and misses in diverse sectors that are widely being debated by think tanks, when it comes to the government's gender report card, it perhaps is still a mixed bag. Well, the positive is at least the policy intentions are in place although for them to get translated on the ground will take some time.

Other schemes of the government include Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao Yojana, that was initiated in 2015 to improve the child sex ratio in several remote corners in the country, by ensuring that girl children are born, and can go to school. The Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana was also launched wherein parents/guardians could make investments in the names of two to three daughters/wards to fund either their education or marriages after they turn 18. Besides, there are some other schemes too that have attained attention like #selfiewithdaughter campaign, where people could post pictures of themselves and their daughters on social media. In 2015, Arundhati Bhattacharya, Chairperson of the state-run SBI said that as much as 49% of the accounts opened under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana were held by women. This scheme was introduced to give the poor access to banking services.

However, these are just the positives. There have also been contradictions. In 2015, when Maneka Gandhi, Minister for Women and Child Development suggested that it should become mandatory for companies to reveal in their annual reports if they have constituted Internal Complaints Committees to look into instances of sexual harassment, the Minister for Corporate Affairs, Arun Jaitley, reportedly turned it down. After all, mandating such a disclosure would contribute to the broad sense of accountability and answerability that the Prime Minister has described.

All in all, its just been two years so as we begin the journey in the third one, it remains to be seen his government puts a holistic idea of women's empowerment into action.