Equal Opportunities to Women in Employment :

Article 16 of the Constitution of India guarantees equality of opportunity for all citizens in matters relating to employment or appointment to any office under the State. Further, it provides that no citizen shall, on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, descent, place of birth, residence or any of them, be ineligible for, or discriminated against in respect of, any employment or office under the State.

The Minister of Women & Child Development Smt. Krishna Tirath stated in Lok Sabha recently that to enhance the employability of women, the Government is providing skill training to women through a network of Women Industrial Training Institutes. There are 11 National Vocational Training Institutes providing training facilities, exclusively for women in skills having high wage-employment and self-employment potential. Further there are women wings in general ITIs which are under the administrative control of respective State Governments. National Council for Vocational Training (NCVT) has enhanced the percentage of reservation for women from 25% to 30% in training institutes.

Smt. Krishna stated besides this, the Government has enacted the Equal Remuneration Act, 1976 which provides for payment of equal remuneration to men and women workers for the same work or work of a similar nature without any discrimination and also prevents discrimination against women employees while making recruitment for the same work or work of similar nature, or in any condition of service subsequent to recruitment such as promotions, training or transfer. The Government has taken several steps for creating a congenial work environment for women workers and a number of protective provisions have been incorporated in various labour laws. These include provision of crèches where a certain number of women are employed, maternity benefit and safeguards against sexual harassment of women workers at their work places, etc. With these efforts more and more women would be encouraged to take up employment. However, it is difficult to quantify the number of women likely to be benefitted there from.

Source : PIB Release, August 24, 2011