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| Too much focus on numbers in J&K, too little work being done on ground | | Women empowerment | | Syed Junaid Hashmi
Early Times Report
Jammu, Sept 17: Women empowerment in Jammu and Kashmir has seemingly remained restricted and limited to seminars, symposiums, workshops and debates. Not much has percolated down to various districts of Jammu and Kashmir.
Though numbers do indicate that women are far more empowered in villages across Jammu and Kashmir but on ground, situation is not only worrisome but calls for making efforts on war footing basis if the situation is to be reversed. According to the official figures available with Early Times, no government has ever made any serious effort to correct the wrong.
Even the data that has been communicated to the union ministry of statistics and programme clearly indicates that women merely are a number in Jammu and Kashmir. They have been used by the male folk for getting loans since the rate of interest is lower and the loans are readily available for the female folk, says a report of the statistics department. It asserts that in most of the cases, it found out that the loans have been availed by male members on the name of females.
It says that ground verification brought to light the chilling facts that women empowerment in Jammu and Kashmir is a myth and the slogan has virtually no connection with ground reality. Number do show that women in Jammu and Kashmir own more than 31292 establishments but the reality is that most of these establishments are with male members of the family and they have merely used females in their families to avail loans facilities, says the report.
An in-depth analysis reveals that of the 31292 establishments, around 500 are being run by females while all others are merely registered on the name of a female and have actually a male members as its owner. It further shows that these establishments have 23012 without hired workers which clearly mean that the same is being run by the owner herself. A ground survey revealed that these were mostly being run by males and women were owners in the records only.
Even this number is 0.39 percent of the total establishments in the state which is a clear indication that women are being used as tool to avail loan facility and then, pushed back to do household chores. They are not allowed to operate independently and maintain the establishments created on their name. Not only this, the share of employment generated by the establishments owned by women is just 0.51 percent, says the report.
It asserts that there are 23527 self-financed establishments with 1676 establishments having come-up on the financial assistance provided by the government, 638 from borrowings from the financial institutions, 933 from borrowings from the money lenders, 45 from loans availed from the self-help groups and 4473 from the donations. Most of these establishments are small shops and not establishments which could employ more than 2 to 4 people.
The report further says that the loans have been availed for some other purpose while when it comes to spending; they have been spent on some other purpose. The report has expressed disgust over the inability of the state government to empower women in the true sense. It needs to be mentioned here that central government has clearly stated that women should have equal access and control over economic and financial resources since it is critical for the achievement of gender equality and empowerment of women.
The female headed households are 11.5 percent in rural areas whereas this was 12.4 percent in urban areas as per 68th round of NSS, 2011-12. Female literacy rate was 65.46 percent as per Population Census 2011. Work force participation rate for female was 25.51 as per Population Census 2011. Women have started playing important roles in decision making at all levels.
Although data on women labour force, literacy, health aspects etc., are being generated regularly though regular Censuses and Surveys but data on women entrepreneurialship at state level is rather scanty. At the national level, 8.05 million out of the total 58.5 million establishments are being run by women entrepreneurs in India which is around 13.76 % of total number of establishments. Total workers engaged in women owned & run establishments were 13.48 million persons, which is 10.24% of the total number of workers engaged in India under different economic activities. |
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