Women executives climbing ladder mostly in services sector

NEW DELHI: Women Parliamentarians may have enough reasons to cheer about the government���s recent move to ensure 33% reservation for women candidates, but the number of female executives occupying top positions across power corridors and corporate boardrooms is abysmal.

SundayET did some quick back-of-the-envelope calculations and here is what we found. While there are only nine women ministers in Manmohan Singh���s 80-member council of ministers, the number of women IAS officers in the country is 592 out of a total of 4,671, according to latest government data. In other words, female officers in India���s highest bureaucratic echelon constitute mere 12% of the total.

As far as the Cabinet ministers are concerned, only two women find place, which in percentage terms works out to be a mere 6%. Among the 30 chief ministers in the country, only three, i.e. 10%, are women. Similarly, among 35 chief secretaries in various states and union territories, only the Gujarat chief secretary is from the fairer sex.

Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit said women���s inability to reach to the top positions is a global phenomenon and India is no exception.

���According to an International Labour Organisation (ILO) report, 75% of the world���s activities are executed by women, but they own mere 0.01% of the total assets. The US till now has not produced a woman President. I feel, most women can���t pursue their career single-mindedly as they have family reponsibilities as well,��� the chief minister said.

Significantly, there is no woman CEO in the 30 top companies, comprising the BSE benchmark index, Sensex. According to a study of 149 Indian companies undertaken by the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) in 2006, women constitute 16% of junior level managers and only 4% in senior managerial posts. Further, only 1% of the organisations have women CEOs.

Women executives have gone up the ladder mostly in the services sector. Naina Lal Kidwai, country head, HSBC; Renuka Ramnath, managing director & CEO, ICICI Venture; Preetha Reddy, managing director, Apollo Hospitals; and Chanda Kochhar, joint managing director & CFO, ICICI Bank, are some of the prominent women bigwigs in the country.

Chairman and MD for UBS India, Manisha Girotra, told SundayET that some women CEOs would emerge in the manufacturing sector in the coming years. ���Women have been performing well in the banking sector.