For Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, women’s empowerment is not just a slogan; it is a mission he has been pursuing relentlessly since 2000 when he first came to power as the head of a BJD-BJP coalition. On Friday, his government achieved another milestone on this front when six-time MLA Pramila Mallik became the first woman speaker of Odisha assembly. It is evident that Pramila, who represents the reserved (SC) Binjharpur seat, would not have been able to break the glass ceiling without the Chief Minister’s support.
A true feminist, Naveen – just like his legendary late father Biju Patnaik – has been a relentless crusader for the empowerment of women. Biju Babu was the first leader to reserve 33 percent seats for female members in Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI) during his second stint as the state’s chief minister between 1990 and 1995. It was a revolutionary move back then and set a benchmark for others to follow.
Naveen, however, went a step further and increased the reservation quota for women in PRIs from 33 to 50 percent. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Naveen set a new record by allocating 33 percent of BJD tickets to women candidates. That included septuagenarian Pramila Bisoi, a woman self-help group (SHG) leader who contested from Aska in Ganjam, the home district of the Chief Minister. She won with a convincing margin. The much-talked-about women reservation bill being discussed in the parliament owes a lot to five-time Chief Minister who has forever been campaigning for 33 percent reservation for women in Lok Sabha and state assemblies.
One of the most important initiatives of the Chief Minister, aimed at making women financially independent and contribute to the economic development of the state, is Mission Shakti. It has already turned into a movement. Presently more than 70 lakh women organised into SGHs are being provided guidance and assistance by Mission Shakti, which has been accorded the status of a full-fledged government department.
Led by its dynamic commissioner-cum-secretary, Sujata Karthikeyan, the department continues to find new avenues of income generation for these women who hail from poor backgrounds. Once confined to cooking mid-day meals for students in government schools, these women today are engaged in a wide range of activities including collection of water bills from individual households in cities like Bhubaneswar.
The popularity of these women collectives can be gauged from the spectacular victory of Bisoi from Aska Lok Sabha constituency in 2019. She was handpicked by the Chief Minister for her role in turning SHG work into a movement for the economic empowerment of women. The women collectives now work in close cooperation with the government, which has facilitated diversification of their activities. The SHG movement has not only added to the confidence of these women coming from ordinary backgrounds, but also bestowed dignity on them.
Naveen, a visionary leader, was quick to realize the tremendous economic potential of these women who had for decades remained confined within the four walls of their homes. He took the initiative to harness their creative potential for the economic growth of Odisha. Thanks to that alone, he will always remain the favourite political leader for a vast majority of the state’s women.
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