Empowering women essential to empower entire humanity: MoS PMO

NEW DELHI: Empowering women is essential for empowering the entire humanity and many steps are being taken in this regard, Union Minister Jitendra Singh said here today.

Addressing a function, he explained that empowering a man may sometimes remain limited to empowerment of a single individual but empowerment of a woman leads to empowerment of entire family.

"Empowering women is essential for empowering the entire humanity," the Minister of State in Prime Minister's Office said addressing a workshop on women empowerment at the Indian Institute of Public Administration ( IIPA) here.

"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," he said.

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 said.

"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," Singh said.