INTRODUCTION:

Since ancient times, in our country, men have been in charge and responsible for the upkeep of the house, and till date, men have been shown great leadership in the patriarchal society. In the villages, women have been actively involved in household responsibilities like farming, livestock farming, housekeeping etc. But in this also, men plays an important role because there have been no development to educate women with sufﬁcient quantity and quality in different sectors, socially, economically, and politically.

Women are a source of strength. They form a half of the country’s population. The one-third part of the total labor force of the country is formed by women who can contribute as a strong force in the development, progress and prosperity of the country. But this will only happen when women are empowered and take part in the whole development process.

In the Indian Constitution, the values of independence, equality and justice for women are kept in mind while creating a social system in order to protect, promote and gain a proper place in the society and to become a male counterpart in the society. Human rights such as marriage, property, divorce, ﬁling, wages, dowry, unjust repression, beneﬁts and violence, protection against laws and regulations are in force for women. Today, various plans and programs are being implemented by the government for development and empowerment of rural and urban women all over the nation.

1. Women Empowerment:

The concept of empowerment is very intriguing and thus, it forms a subject of analysis. The theoretical background is an important element granted by the UN to know more about it. Empowerment is one such process in which the woman do not want anyone to depend on, and in addition, they have their own ideas and control their lives. In this way, it coincides with the process of acquiring the choice of strategic life which was earlier neglected.

After many decades of declaration of women empowerment by UN in 1975, women have constantly been evolved and focused on the progress of the country. The deﬁnition of empowerment has been given by the World Bank is as follows:

“Empowerment is a process of increasing the ability of selecting a person or a group.” Empowerment means empowering and actively empowering the authority. It is a lengthy process in which a person or a group identiﬁes their outlook and powers in all spheres of life. Women empowerment is ahead of the formal and informal campaigns at the global level. The concept of female empowerment was introduced in the International Seminar at Probi.

2. Status of women in India:

About half of the world's population is female, and even a little less than half in India. The women contribute economically to the community as well as family. The contribution of women is also noted with the purpose of employment in the private sector. Women seems to be living on men’s kindness in this male-dominated society. From the very beginning, women are seen as an economic material in the society. So it means that the society is also aware of the basic necessities of life. Over the past few decades, the gender difference has been widen and many policies have brought into effect, in order to improve the status of women, even though women are far behind than men in the socio-economic factors such as literacy, employment, leadership in political affairs, etc.

3. Why do women need empowerment?

In Indian culture, as depicted in the “Veda Puran”, women is worshiped as goddess. She is also regarded as a goddess of wealth. In India, especially in rural areas, we need to draw our attention to the empowerment process of rural women. About 66%of the rural population of women are not productive in the rural are as due to social customs. Women’s contribution to agriculture and animal husbandry is 90% of the total work force. Women form about half of the world’s population, in which about two-third part of the world constitute their tenure, they receive one-tenth of the total income of the world and their possession is less than one-hundredth. Out of 900 million people in the world, the ratio of females to males is 2:1. About 70% of poverty-stricken people are women.

4. Five year plans and women in India:

The First Five Year Plan(1951-56) includes welfare schemes for women. The Central Social Welfare Board was set up in 1953 under this implicit plan. Later, the community looked forward to the problems faced by women and realized the need to organize women into different groups in order to help other women.

In the Second Five Year Plan (1956-61), the main focus was on intensive agricultural development, but the issues related to approaching women were recognized or linked to women who works for their welfare or provide efforts to protect them. Protecting women against any harms or harassment at workplace, during childbirth and protection of themselves and their children were some most noteworthy suggestion given under the scheme. For training provision or job, the payroll costs or salary must be equal for the equal amount of work done.

The Third Five Year Plan (1961-66) was a tutorial for women in order to provide training facilities that became a major welfare structure for women. The most to the expenditure of cells under this scheme was spenton social welfare services and defense course for women. The approach for education, particularly education for women continued during the Fourth Five Year Plan.

The Fifth Five Year Plan (1974-79) was to promote the welfare of women as a basic efforts to increase cost of family planning and to reduce birth rate.

The Sixth Five Year Plan (1980-85) involved women's development. In the procedure of development, women’s progress included a different chapter. It also promotes ﬁnancial health and health promotion, support the well-being and empowerment of women, and family planning for women's development.

The Seventh Five Year Plan (1985-1990) was started for the rights and privileges of women and to raise awareness among them. The scheme aims was to enhance the social and economic status of women. An attempt was made to bring them into the mainstream of national development and to recognize their familiarity to contribute to various social, economic, cultural and political activities. Under this scheme, work opportunities for new women were opened to understand their needs for a viable resource.

The Eighth Five Year Plan (1997-2002) added Rs. 2000 crores as an approach paper which involved a residual strain on empowerment. There seemed to be a partnership of women and other people in planning and implementing the structures. Women's empowerment in this scheme means the advantages, beneﬁts and opportunities given to women. The government has tried to provide a competitive environment for all women.

The Tenth Five Year Plan (2002-07) was recently adopted and all steps were taken to conﬁrm women empowerment through the transformation of national policy.

The Eleventh Five Year Plan (2007-12) is to enhance the case. The goal of eliminating gender bilateral and gender discrimination in the upcoming years. For the ﬁrst time in this project, women were not recognized in the same way as citizens but as creators. But in economic and social development women acted as an agent to facilitate participation and at the highest possible level women strengthened their representative capacity in the current situations.

The Twelfth Five Year Plan (2012-17) implemented empowerment of women in all walks of life. The scheme employed the empowerment of women by encouraging participation in the economic field, the social and consumer industries, and in administration of the government. But rural women still appeared to be weak and some cases like the premature women being mobilized by the masses, the minorities are beaten, the migrants and smuggling of women have been identiﬁed.

5. Some additional efforts for women empowerment in India:

After the independence of India, the government has taken some steps to organize relief. And development of state-based authority for social welfare activities. Here are some of the beneﬁts of utilization rights.

(a) National Perspective Plan for Women (1988-2000):

A national prospect was brought in by the Department for Women. Other departments like the Children Department, the Human Resources Development, and the Development Ministry planned to focus on rural women in particular, who suffer twice much. This plan gave new impetus to the development programs for women. All of these programs aimed at the business promoting the development of women in the rural areas.

The recommendations made under this scheme are:

· The department needs in-depth integration and supervision.

· Women and Children Development.

· A country educating women who have priority to contribute to the socio-economic development effectively.

· Eliminate all forms of discrimination for employment, especially wage management, and difference between women.

(b) National Commission for Women:

The National Commission for Women (NCW) was established on 31^st January 1992 under the National Commission for Women Act 1190.Under the scheme, women were encouraged to present their opinions regarding the socio-economic development of the country, and under the central and the state governments, women's empowerment evaluated the progress of women. The Commission has initiated a phase to improve the status of women and their work for empowerment. The main activities of this Commission were the investigation, examination and review of all Indian. They provided matters of review of the security for women under the constitution, such as: women-speciﬁc reform, monitor and ﬁle complaints where relevant and appropriate to the applicable law. The Commission has beenat the forefront of facilitating solutions to women and many more national efforts.

(c) National Policy for Women Empowerment (2001):

The Government of India has declared the year 2001 as ‘Women's Empowerment Year’ because a national policy for empowerment was introduced for women in this year. This policy has specific socio-economic and political objectives for women empowerment in the culture to raise awareness regarding women’s issues have arisen among women. The goal was to encourage the active participation of all important people for the purpose. The important purpose of the policy is to:

· Create a positive environment through socio-economic well-being.

· Equal rights for women to participate in decision for socio-economic development.

· Create an atmosphere of partnership with the civil society.

· Discrimination and all forms of violence against women are eliminated.

REFERENCES:

1. “Women's Empowerment: A Study on the Concerns of Rural Women in Valsad District” (2014)

2. IOSR Journal of Business & Management. Volume 17 (April 3), pp. 13-19

3. www.iosrjournals.org.

4. M N Srinivas’s. “A Demographic Opinion of Economic and Political as a part of Weekly System” Part-38, Number-5 (February 1-7 2003), pp. 457

5. Anilkumar Bhardwaj’s. “A Study in Gandhian Plans for the Welfare of Scheduled Castes in Punjab” Punjab University, Chandigarh Page-111

6. Bella Malik in the Economic and Political Weekly “Untouchability and Oppression on Dalit women”Part-34, No. 6 (February 6-12, 1999) pp. 323

7. Amarakumar Gupta (Ed) Nira Desai in Women “Women's Remedies for Health and Society - Demand Eminent Perspective” New Delhi, Quietrain Publications 1986

8. <http://planningcommission.nic.in/plans/planrel/ﬁveyr/tth/vol2/7zch14.html>

Received on 02.01.2020 Modified on 15..02.2020

Int. J. Rev. and Res. Social Sci. 2020; 8(1): 08-10.

DOI: 10.5958/2454-2687.2020.00003.9