Awareness Regarding Women Empowerment Programmes in Barmer District of Rajasthan

Empowerment is the main process of social development which can enable women to participate, in the economic, political and social sustainable development of the rural communities. Today the empowerment of women has become one of the most important concerns of 21^st century but practically women empowerment is still an illusion of reality. Empowerment of women is essentially the process of upliftment of economic, social and political status of women, the traditionally underprivileged ones in the society. We observe in our day to day life how women become victimized by various social evils. Women Empowerment is the vital instrument to expand women’s ability to have resources and to make strategic life choices. It is the process of guarding them against all forms of violence. The study is based on purely from secondary sources. The present study was an attempt to know utilization of these programmes by rural home-makers. The study was conducted in 50 rural households of two villages selected from one block of Barmer district. The results revealed that few respondents (9.0 %) were aware of the year of women empowerment as well as various empowerment programmes. (11.7%) home-makers who were aware of Ujjawala (10.0) and MNAREGA (47.0), respectively. However, 15.0 per cent women started using women friendly technologies in their households for drudgery reduction and hence, improving their quality of life. Further, only 3.0 per cent of the respondents was making use of credit facilities for starting their own enterprise to supplement family income as they were completely ignorant about various schemes. Schemes like Widow Pension Scheme, Maternity Benefits and Girl Child Benefits were fully utilized as these provide direct economic gains.