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In another popular move, the government has allowed women to bring into the country duty-free gold jewellery worth up to Rs 1 lakh. Riding on the popular national sentiment towards women-related issues, the finance minister chose to do his bit in the Budget by announcing several measures aimed at women from different walks of life. Of these, the measure that was a direct fallout of the Delhi gang rape case was the provision to set up a Rs 1,000-crore Nirbhaya fund. The ministry of women and child development and other ministries concerned will be requested to work out the details of the structure, scope and application of the fund.
The fund is likely to assist government initiatives as well as those by non-government organisations working for the safety of women. "We have a collective responsibility to ensure the dignity and safety of women. Recent incidents have cast a long, dark shadow on our liberal and progressive credentials… We stand in solidarity with our girl children and women. And, we pledge to do everything possible to empower them and to keep them safe and secure," the minister said in his speech.
In addition to this fund, the ministry of women and child development has been asked to design schemes that will address the concerns of women belonging to the most vulnerable groups, including single women and widows. An additional Rs 200 crore has been allocated to the ministry to device schemes that will help such women.
To help the large proportion of women handloom weavers, the minister accepted their long-pending demand for working capital and term loans at a concessional interest of six per cent. In all, 150,000 individual weavers and 1,800 primary cooperative societies will benefit from this in 2013-14. The National Skill Development Corporation will set the curriculum and standards for training young women in different skills. The government will initially invest Rs 1,000 crore in this scheme.
Chidambaram's moves to woo women got the twitterati active. But not everyone was pleased with these initiatives.
While some Bharatiya Janata Party leaders tweeted that India was going the Arab countries' way by introducing segregation, media personality Pritish Nandy tweeted, "Wonderful. We can't stop rapes, crimes against women. But we want to open a bank for women. As if women can't use normal banks!"
