New Delhi, October 15: Union Minister of Women and Child Development and Textiles Smriti Irani on Tuesday stated that the newly formed Jal Shakti Ministry would create 3.75 million jobs for women across the country. Adding more, she was of the opinion that the Narendra Modi government is mulling to employ five women each across 750,000 villages. Social Networking For MSMEs: Narendra Modi Govt to Launch Facebook-Like Portal Soon.

Stating more about the Union government's plan, Irani said that all these rural women would be trained to ensure water quality, maintain water hygiene and turn water into an enterprise. Expressing her opinion at the Bloomberg Equality Summit, the Union Minister said, "Under the Jal Shakti Ministry, there will be massive employment generation for women in the districts identified. At present, we have found water-related challenges in 256 districts. We are involved in training women across these districts."

The Minister informed that the Union Ministry is taking a series of steps to empower women in the country, where female labour force participation rate is 27 percent --considered among the lowest globally. Speaking about the challenges, she said, "One of the biggest challenges for women was access to credit. Through the Jan Dhan Yojana, about 199 million women (out of 370 million accounts) have had their bank accounts opened in the last five years. Similarly, there were 200 million loans disbursed as part of the Mudra scheme. Of this, around 70 percent beneficiaries were women."

Apart from the job creation, Irani mentioned that the government had increased the maternity leave to 26 weeks. But, cautioned the companies not to back down from employing them when it comes to promotions.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Oct 15, 2019 05:24 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).