The women of Jammu and Kashmir have, according to a recent report, now proved that they are in no way lagging behind the men of the state or the nation. According to the state government’s new Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR) report, the rate of working women in Jammu and Kashmir has increased to 32.8 per cent in 2021, a significant increase from 26.5 per cent in 2018-2019. What’s more, this LFPR is higher than the national average, which is 25.1 per cent.
The report also states that the LFPR of women in Jammu and Kashmir’s villages is higher than that in towns. With 35.3 per cent of rural women and 22.3 per cent of urban women working, this curious reversal of the rural-urban divide is also significant. The number of working women between the ages of 15 and 39 has also gone up from 36.3 per cent in 2018-2019 to 46.8 per cent in 2021. Clearly, more and more women in the state are joining the workforce and becoming financially independent.
The state government has revealed that this change may be attributed to the fact that many schemes have been launched to enable and empower women financially. One such scheme is Hosla, where women are given up to ₹50,000 to start their own businesses. The Tejaswani scheme, launched in June 2021, is also a start-up funding programme promoting women entrepreneurs in the state. Under this scheme, women can avail up to ₹5 lakh from banks under the national MUDRA programme. In 2021, women established 3,933 micro-small medium enterprises (MSMEs) across the state. Going by the above report, women in the state are taking full advantage of the schemes.
*Image used for representative purpose.