"Days of seeing women only as homemakers have gone; we have to see them as nation-builders." - Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi
Picture a woman from most Indian villages in her thirties. Till a decade ago, she woke up before dawn, to walk away from her house, in the dark for her morning ablutions, despite being afraid and exposed. She carried water from a distant well or river for all members of her home. She cooked on wood fire that stung her lungs and lived in a house that was devoid of her name. She had no bank account, no insurance, no voice. Today, each one of those realities has changed. That change has a name : “Nari Shakti”, the result of eleven years of tireless efforts made under the dynamic leadership of a Prime Minister who refused to treat any dimension of a woman's life as separable from the rest.
Dignity First -
Our Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri. Narendra Modi ensured that empowerment began with what dignity demanded first, a toilet. The Swachh Bharat Mission (2014) built over 10 crore household toilets, declaring rural India Open Defecation Free by 2019, eleven years ahead of the UN target. This resulted in ninety-three per cent of women feeling safer. The increase in the percentage of toilets in girls schools from 37% to 91% led to decrease in the drop out rate of girls in the school. The Jal Jeevan Mission connected over 15 crore rural homes to tap water, ending women’s burden of the long walk to rivers or wells to bring water for the home. PM Ujjwala Yojana added over ten crore LPG connections each in the woman's name. PM Awas Yojana-Gramin ensured that over two crore houses constructed under the scheme included the woman as it's owner, ensuring her a place of her own with legal proof of existence and collateral for loans. Toilet, water, fuel, home - these were not four schemes, but one unbroken act of restoring dignity.
Health from the First Breath -
A woman's empowerment was initiated even before her birth. Mission POSHAN 2.0, with a budget of over ₹1.81 lakh crore between 2021 and 2026 targets the critical first 1,000 days of life. The Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (PMMVY) has paid over ₹20,000 crore in maternity benefits to over four crore mothers as of 31st March 2026, directly into bank accounts. Over 90,015 Surakshit Matritva Aashwasan ( SUMAN) health facilities guarantee free, dignified maternal care. PM Suraksha Bima Yojana and PM Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana extend an insurance safety net to millions who had none. Beti Bachao Beti Padhao has improved the sex ratio at birth from 918 to 930; Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana has secured daughters' futures through crores of savings accounts.
From Survival to Aspiration -
Financial independence is the spine of empowerment. 57.93 crore Jan Dhan accounts, of which 55.7% are held by women, exist as of March 2026. making them direct recipients of government transfers. Similarly, PM MUDRA Yojana has sanctioned over 57 crore loans worth ₹40+ lakh crore, of which 66% were women. DAY-NRLM has organised over 10 crore women, into over 90 lakh self-help groups, the world's largest women's collective, with lakhs of lakhpati didis crossing ₹1 lakh annual income. NaMo Drone Didi trains SHG women as agricultural drone operators. Such aspiration had been waiting only for an opportunity.
Safety, Justice and the Breaking of Silence -
Mission Shakti with 819 Sakhi One Stop Centres offers legal aid, shelter, medical help, and counselling under one roof and has assisted almost 11 lakh women. The Women Helpline has handled 214.78 lakh calls. Childline, Working Women's Hostels, the Nirbhaya Fund, and the SHe-Box portal complete a safety net from village to boardroom. The abolition of instant triple talaq in 2019, making it a criminal offence, changed the lives of millions of Muslim women overnight. This was not merely a legal reform but a declaration that every Indian woman is a citizen of a constitutional republic, entitled to equal dignity and equal protection.
Breaking Glass Ceilings -
When ambition met opportunity, India's women guided Chandrayaan-3 to the moon, graduated from the National Defence Academy for the first time and produced India's first woman Rafale pilot in Squadron Leader Shivangi Singh. India leads the world in women STEM graduates. The Women's Cricket World Cup was won in 2025, and all these are the headlines of a new India.
The Constitutional Moment -
The Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, passed unanimously by both Houses of Parliament in September 2023, reserves one-third of Lok Sabha and State Assembly seats for women ,and was the first legislation of India's new Parliament building. As of 24th March 2026, almost 49.75% that is 12,14,885 of India's 24,41,781 panchayat representatives are women. When women govern, water flows, sanitation improves then girls stay in school. With the implementation of the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, that lesson would soon travel to Parliament.
360 Degrees : Interconnected, indivisible-
Toilet, water, fuel, home, health, livelihood, safety, representation : each is a link in a chain. Remove one and the chain breaks. This is the 360-degree vision, not a collection of schemes, but one indivisible commitment to every Indian woman's complete life : from her first breath nourished by POSHAN, to the day she takes the oath of office in a legislature or the parliament thanks to the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam. Much has been accomplished but the work continues.
"From welfare to women-led development, India's Nari Shakti marches forward. The nation must leave no woman behind."
R.Vimala, IAS,
Resident Commissioner & Secretary,
Government of Maharashtra ,
Maharashtra Sadan, Delhi
PhD Scholar at IIT Bombay
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