Excelsior Correspondent
New Delhi, Mar 10: Addressing a workshop in the follow-up to International Women’s Day at the Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA) here today, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh said, empowering women is essential for empowering men and infact for empowering the entire humanity.
The theme for this year’s International Women’s Day is, therefore, very aptly and ably chosen as “Empowering Women, Empowering Humanity: Picture it!”, he added.
Dr Jitendra 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 menfolk comprising her parents, husband and children. While appropriate legislations for safety of women in workplace are envisaged every now and then, what is equally important is that there should be a work-friendly environment where not only 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 Jitendra 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 Jitendra Singh referred to a number of innovative measures adopted by the Department of Personnel & 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 added.
Dr Jitendra Singh mentioned the mid-career scheme for working women scientists which he had introduced as Science & Technology Minister and said, he would discuss with the officers in Department of Personnel & Training (DoPT) whether something similar can be feasible even in case of women officers from Civil Services.
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