Why in News?

• The Government is setting up Hub for Empowerment of Women (HEW) at the National, State, and District levels under ‘Samarthya’ sub-scheme of ‘Mission Shakti, an Umbrella Scheme for the safety, security, and empowerment of women.

About the HEW:

• The hub was set up by the centre recognising the need for a single window system for the inter-sectoral convergence of schemes and programmes meant for women.
• It subsumed the existing Mahila Shakti Kendra Scheme.
• It aims to facilitate women’s access to various institutional and schematic set ups for information dissemination and availing services.
• These can be related to healthcare, quality education, career and vocational counselling, training, financial inclusion, entrepreneurship, backward and forward linkages, health and safety for workers, social security and digital literacy etc.

The Need of Hub for empowerment of women:

• It will provide one stop convergent support services for empowering rural women with opportunities for skill development, employment, digital literacy, health and nutrition.
• It will serve as a medium for the implementation of women-centric government schemes and programmes between local administration, state government, and ministry of women and child development.
• It can be crucial in awareness generation for various government initiatives and programmes, as well as of societal problems that affect the lives of women in general.

About Mission Shakti:

• It was launched during the 15th Finance Commission, from the period of 2021-22 to 2025-26.
• It is an integrated women empowerment programme, launched as an umbrella scheme for the safety, security and empowerment of women.
• It comprises of two sub-schemes ‘Sambal’ and ‘Samarthya’.
• The ‘Sambal’ sub-scheme is for safety and security of women,
• The ‘Samarthya’ sub-scheme is for empowerment of women.

Sambal:

• It consists of schemes of One Stop Centre (OSC), Women Helpline (WHL), Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (BBBP).
• It has a new component of Nari Adalats – women’s collectives to promote and facilitate alternative dispute resolution and gender justice in society and within families.

Samarthya:

• It comprises the erstwhile schemes of Ujjwala, Swadhar Greh and Working Women Hostel with modifications.
• The existing schemes of National Creche Scheme for children of working mothers and Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (PMMVY) under the umbrella of Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) are part of it as well.
• HEW will be part of this subscheme.

Conclusion:

• HEW will act as an interface for rural women to approach the government for availing their entitlements. Since there are several schemes for women empowerment being implemented by several departments, bringing them and converging them on a single platform will definitely aid in greater access to resources.