Women Empowerment through Kudumbashree Unit: An Empirical Examination

Abstract

Women are the good source of man power and contribute effectively towards human capital for which they have to be adequately equipped. Kudumbashree units are today one of the largest women empowering project in our country. Women empowerment is one of the important objectives of kudumbashree along with poverty eradication. The main aim of the kudumbashree scheme is to improve the standard of living of poor women in rural areas by setting up micro credit and productive enterprises. Rural women are treated as voiceless and defenseless. So they have to be empowered to fight against the evils faced by them. As per the documents associated with Kudumbashree, women want to identify their inner strength, opportunities for growth and their role in reshaping their own destiny. The main objective of this paper is to know to what extend this programme has influenced the rural women for their empowerment. Kerala is considered as literate state as compared to other states of our country. The study indicates that majority of the women of kudumbashree units are working on daily wages and their total income is low. The women empowerment is achieved only a limited extend by Kudumbashree members.