Government will soon come out with a women empowerment index for states

NEW DELHI: The government will soon come out with a women empowerment index that would rank all states and union territories on at least half a dozen indices pertaining to women.

India ranks 135 among 147 nations on women empowerment as per United Nations Human Development Index in 2015. The nationwide index proposed is expected to help India improve its ranking globally.

The ranking will among other parameters include women participation in household decisions, working women in the state, women having bank accounts and the proportion of women who experience spousal violence.

Government's premier think-tank NITI Aayog has mooted the proposal for such an index, much in sync with other indices being developed by the Aayog across sectors like health, education, water management, agriculture, energy efficiency and digital drive.

A senior government official told ET that the Aayog has already held initial rounds of discussion with all stakeholders including ministry of women and child development, health ministry and the ministry of statistics and programme implementation to finalise the indices for mapping empowerment of women in each state.

“The first such ranking of states based on the empowerment of women is expected to be out by the end of this year and would help Centre assist states to improve the condition of women population,” the official said, requesting anonymity.

According to the official, data already available from the National Family Health Survey could initially form the basis of the survey.

The survey, done by the health ministry, provides data for eight indicators under the category women’s empowerment and gender-based violence. The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, which is under the commerce ministry, has already been ranking states over the last few years on the basis of measures taken by them to improve the ease of doing business.