In order to ensure empowerment of women in all spheres – economic, social, political and legal, the government has set up a National Mission for Empowerment of Women.

President Pratibha Patil on March 8, 2010 launched the National Mission for Empowerment of Women that is aimed at socio-economic development and empowerment of women. The Mission will focus on ensuring coordinated delivery of women-centric and women-related programmes of the government.

The president said that the prosperity and growth of India required that women, half its population, were actively drawn into the planning and development process, especially at the grassroots level in rural areas. President Patil said that since Independence, India had made significant strides in empowering women by addressing social discrimination faced by them, providing them access to resources and spreading awareness among them about their rights.

“It is only when we spread education and skill development among women that they can be agents of economic and social growth,” she remarked, calling for a special focus on implementation of education programmes for women and the girl child as tools of empowerment.

“We need a new social reform movement, for gender equality and empowerment of our women - a movement that changes society’s attitude towards women,” she said.

Union Minister for Women and Child Development Krishna Tirath in January had announced several measures to accelerate the process of women’s empowerment.

The ministry has set up an Inter Ministerial Group to finalise the proposed Bill for Prevention of Sexual Harassment at Workplace; proposals to restructure and expand the Rashtriya Mahila Kosh and the premier micro credit agency for women to raise its corpus to Rs. 500 crore from the present Rs. 100 crore have been drawn out.

In addition to this, the minister had announced that the ICDS scheme would be expanded to include adolescent girls through Rajiv Gandhi Scheme for Empowerment of Adolescent Girls (RGSEAG), also known as SABLA. This comprehensive scheme for empowerment of adolescent girls is currently under consideration.