FM, industry discuss women workforce at length

Citing their own research on sharply declining women participation in the workforce, specially post-Covid, industry leaders Monday sought policy regulations to check their decline at a post Budget outreach programme with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and her team of secretaries.

Curious to know the reason herself, the finance minister asked the industry honchos to come up with their response on what is causing this decline.

"I am really curious to know at least in the formal sector, what is your understanding of decline," was the quick response of the finance minister when R. Mukundan, Managing Director of Tata Chemicals urged that the government should also a "third angle" of diversity while framing the policies, which gives emphasis on digital and sustainability.

Mukundan, who is also the National President of the Employees Federation of India, said research headed by him at CII's committee on labour and industrial relations found a perceptible shrinkage of women in the workforce, particularly in the last two years.

To the finance minister's query, he said maybe when companies started laying off post-Covid, women became the worst victim and added that when jobs had become the key issue in the post-pandemic era, some sort of the government's guideline could help companies move forward.

Industry honchos felt that regulations have helped increase women's participation at the Board level but within the corporate sector, it is still lacking.

CEO and MD of Tata Steel, T V Narendran said that some state governments do not allow women to work on three shifts and that prohibits them from entering the shop floor.

Punit Chhatwal, MD and CEO of Indian Hotels Company Limited came up with some of the best practices in Germany, Switzerland and Scandinavian countries where women are employed at the Board and rest of the ladder is taken care of by them.

To this, however, Sitharaman disagreed saying she herself has called up many women inviting them to represent the Boards of government companies but she found that they were not very forthcoming.

A considerable amount of time was devoted to the issue of women in the post-Budget interaction with industry in Mumbai. Revenue Secretary Tarun Bajaj said women have outnumbered men at his CBDT Board and he is quite happy with their work.

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