Dr.Banarsi Lal and Dr.Shahid Ahamad
Development may be defined as a function of economic, social, educational and cultural betterment of people. In India various programmes have been initiated for women betterment. Women share has been ensured as members and chairpersons in rural and urban local governments. Women empowerment these days has become a buzz word. For the concept of Women’s Component Plan which was mooted as far back as in the Seventh Plan, put into practice in the Ninth Plan as one of the important strategies to earmark not less than 30 per cent of funds and benefits in all women related sectors by the Centre and the State Governments. But if we see women empowerment from perspective of their social development, we observe that women are still at margin even after more than five decades of planning and development. The disparity between them and their counterparts is glaring.
The pitiable health and nutrition conditions of women present a gloomy outcome of more than five decades of the planning and development of the country for women in India. This may be seen in the intensity of anaemia among the women. Presently more than 50 per cent of women are anaemic in India. Anaemia in women is highest in Assam and lowest in Kerala. Although the states like Punjab, Haryana and Maharashtra which are known for their prosperity, the anaemia among women is more than 40 per cent. Before 1966 Himachal Pradesh and Harayana were the parts of erstwhile Punjab. If we compare these states we observe that problem is less serious in Himachal Pradesh than the other two states. This could be due to the focus of the leadership on creation of egalitarian society and ensuring people’s participation in developmental activities in the state of Himachal Pradesh. More than 75 per cent of children in our country are anaemic. If we observe at state level, we find that this problem is highest in Haryana where about 84 per cent of children are suffering from anaemia. This problem is 44 per cent in Kerala. This problem is acute in all over the country. We can estimate the fate of building in terms of national building if the bricks in terms of children are weak. The access to antenatal and post-natal care coupled with lack of nutritive food to pregnant women are responsible for this. It has been observed by the Office of the Registrar General, India that 15 per cent of female child below the age of one year, 17.3 per cent in the age group between 1 year to 4 year, 7.9 per cent in the age group of 5 years to 14 years and 59.2 per cent in age group of 15 years and above died due to anaemia. The percentage of male child who died due to anaemia is less than their counterparts. Its main causes are lack of awareness about general health among the people, consumption pattern and level of sanitation. For example, consumption pattern in north Haryana and west Uttar Pradesh is potato and dal as lunch and dinner and chapattis curd with salt mixed with pepper as breakfast. Vegetables rarely form the parts of their consumption basket. This is not in case of poor people but also in case of those who live in the lap of luxury. This fact is hard to swallow but this is the practice which is on this part of the country. It has been revealed that birth-weights of babies born to women in poor income groups are much less than higher groups. The Mid-Term Appraisal of the Ninth Five Year Plan commented “Low dietary intake is the most important cause of under-nutrition. Other major factors responsible for under-nutrition in children are poor infant feeding practices, infections due to poor sanitation, lack of safe drinking water, poor access to heath care. In spite of higher average dietary intake, under nutrition rates are higher in MP, UP and Orissa because of lack of equitable distribution of food and access to health care. Prevalence of anaemia among pregnant women ranges between 50 per cent to 90 per cent.”
The adverse sex ratio is also an indication of deprivation of women in the society. Presently the sex ratio in India is 940 females per 1,000 males as per Census 2011 while it should be 1,000 because number of males should be equal to females. Many states and Union Territories sex ratio is less than national average. In the sates like Harayana and Punjab which are considered as the most prosperous states of the country sex ratio is abysmally low. Let us highlight some factors responsible for this.
* It may be observed that sex ratio is not adverse in southern states of the country. It is due to practice of kinship which is male -friendly in northern states of the country and female- friendly in southern part of the
country.
* The adverse sex ratio particularly in northern part of the country is due to dowry system. It has been observed that dowry is the main reason for female foeticide. It has been found that female foeticide is found more in the families which are prosperous. These families suffer from superiority complex.
* Female participation in the economic activities also determines the sex ratio because the work determines the worth in the society. It has been observed that in those families where women participate in economic activities, this problem is not severe as compared to those families which do not participate in economic activities because in the former families women have not been considered as liability.
The issues of dowry and employment were found to be the main reasons for the social evil. We all know that education to a boy means educating a single man, while educating a girl means educating the whole family. The education among the females is less as compared to males as is evident from the fact that as per the latest Census as against 82.14 percentage literacy of males their counterparts is merely 65.46 per cent. In most of the states the primary education has been put under the domain of the Panchayati Raj and power of supervision and control was also given to Panchayats. It has been observed in the state like Haryana, we can safely say that neither the elected functionaries nor the selected functionaries of the Panchayats are aware about their roles in supervising and controlling the schools located in the villages. They do not have much interest in these kinds of activities.
The social development of women has not been achieved as expected during the planning era, although various measures have been initiated for them. Malini Karkal has worked out a Composite Quality of Life Index (PQLI) based on three measures namely infant mortality rate, life expectancy at age one and literacy for population aged 15 and above using four census periods-1961, 1971, 1981 and 1991 for all states of India and found that the differences for rural and urban areas for all the variants in the four census periods show the poor PQLI for women in the rural areas both as compared to rural males and urban females. These disparities continue for different groups of women, varying with their access to infrastructure and services. Therefore, government should pay more attention on the social development of women.