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KAMAL NATH CALLS FOR AFFIRMATIVE ACTION TO ENSURE WOMEN REACH HIGHEST LEVELS
ADDRESSES NATIONAL MEET OF THE FORUM OF WOMEN IN PUBLIC SECTOR
Date : 12 Feb 2009
Location : New Delhi
Shri Kamal Nath, Union Minister of Commerce & Industry, has stated that there is a need to take affirmative action to ensure that women of India are encouraged to come to the fore in greater numbers in all walks of life including to the highest levels in the PSUs. Speaking at the National Meet of the Forum of Women in Public Sector (WIPS): “Evolving the Blue Print of Change", here today, the Minister informed that the core of women empowerment lies in societal change. We need to speed up societal change whereby boys and girls are given equal opportunity to go to school, not only in the urban centres but also in the vast rural population of our country.
Interacting during the occasion, the Commerce Minister informed that empowerment of women isn’t just taking place at the top of the economic pyramid, it is evolving at the bottom as well and added that women in rural India are now more empowered and independent to take decisions. Shri Kamal Nath further highlighted that India has created a decentralised administration system at the grassroot level for India’s 650,000 villages—known as the Panchayati Raj. There are now have over 2.2 million elected representatives in the Panchayats, and of them, a third are women—our Panchayats combine political empowerment with social empowerment—the bedrock of a successful democracy.
“We need to understand that countries that do not capitalise on the full potential of one half of their societies are misallocating their human resources and undermining their competitive potential. It is important that the Indian PSUs take more affirmative action and seek out deserving women with entrepreneurial and leadership qualities and develop them as ‘future business leaders’ of the public sector”, Shri Kamal Nath said.
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