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Indian Express
02-08-2025
- Business
- Indian Express
How village women from Pune's Hiware are breaking glass ceilings and becoming breadwinners
Monika Dalvi's transformation began with just Rs 50 worth of seeds and a determination that wouldn't take no for an answer. When her husband's agricultural ventures kept failing, she kept asking him to let her manage their farm, but his response was always a firm refusal. 'He finally gave me just 2,000 square feet of land, probably thinking I'd fail,' says Dalvi, a resident of Hiware village in Pune's Purandar taluka. What happened next surprised everyone, including her husband. Within three months, she had earned a profit of Rs 25,000 by cutting out middlemen and selling produce directly to consumers. Today, her husband stays home to take care of their children while Dalvi single-handedly manages 2.5 acres of farmland. 'Women like us from rural areas have the potential to do wonders. We just need family support and proper mentorship,' she says. Dalvi's story is one of 17 similar transformations in Hiware village, where young women have launched enterprises ranging from dairy collectives and tailoring units to beauty parlours and hardware workshops. Their journey from domestic confinement to entrepreneurial leadership offers insights into how targeted interventions can unlock rural women's economic potential. Until recently, most women in Hiware couldn't leave their homes without their husbands' permission, let alone participate in gram sabhas. Despite many being 12th pass or graduates, they had little understanding of local governance. 'Not a single woman used to participate in a gram sabha meeting before,' says Dalvi. But when Magic Bus India Foundation, an NGO, started its Young Women Fellowship Programme (YWFP) in Hiware in November 2023, the picture started changing. The NGO, which works with people from underserved communities, faced initial resistance from families who viewed women's roles as strictly domestic. 'Initially, family members opposed any kind of training for these women. But the women somehow managed to attend the sessions, and gradually, mindsets began shifting,' says Pravina Kukade, Deputy General Manager at Magic Bus Foundation, who conducted life skills training in the village. The programme has helped 124 women across Pune and Raigad districts to become entrepreneurs in two years, with 94 per cent of the first cohort now financially independent. The average monthly income is Rs 9,500, with over half earning profits above Rs 4,000. But the numbers tell only part of the story. Trupti Jagtap, who convinced her husband to let her start a furniture accessories workshop, now generates employment and actively participates in family decisions. 'Unlike before, when we couldn't even voice our suggestions, I now take part in making family decisions,' she says. Nisha Chavre learned tailoring skills through the programme and has since taught over 15 women. Reshma Kudale took beauty parlour training and now provides services as far as Latur and Beed. Moreover, these women have become agents of community development. In April this year, they successfully pressured the gram panchayat through gram sabha meetings to renovate a water tank that had been in disrepair for the last decade. One fellow has become the deputy sarpanch in Khopoli. Community engagement in the area has increased, and women are now addressing issues ranging from water scarcity and garbage disposal to street lighting and school renovations. They have organised health camps, established resource centres, and even collectively funded nursery school renovations using their stipend money. 'The NGO provides entrepreneurship training, seed funding, connections to domain experts, and initially a monthly stipend, which helped instil confidence and make them financially independent,' explains Kukade. 'Through YWFP, we aim to address the Female Labour Force Participation Rate gap, a critical challenge in rural India where women's workforce participation remains low despite their potential,' said Swati Ranware, a trainer with Magic Bus NGO.
Hindustan Times
16-06-2025
- Business
- Hindustan Times
Equipping young women for the future workforce
As India advances toward its Viksit Bharat 2047 vision, one of its most overlooked strengths lies in the millions of young women from underserved communities who remain excluded from the formal workforce. According to a report by Magic Bus India Foundation and Bain & Company (2024), India's Female Labour Force Participation Rate (FLFPR) remains between 35% and 40%, significantly lower than the global average of 47%. To reach its developmental goal of becoming a $30 trillion economy, India needs to integrate nearly 145 million additional women, beyond the current growth in female labour force participation, into the workforce by 2047. Achieving this requires a gender-responsive skilling framework aligned with 21st century skilling, integrating technical training with life and employability skills, digital literacy, and leadership development, especially for individuals from underserved backgrounds. According to a recent Mercer-Mettl report (2023), only 42.6% of Indian graduates are employable. For young women from under-resourced communities, this statistic reflects even deeper barriers, such as limited access to quality education, early marriage, caregiving responsibilities, and mobility constraints. Beyond technical know-how, these women need 21st-century life and employability skills to empower them to succeed in the workplace. This includes communication, collaboration, adaptability, problem-solving, career management, workplace ethics, and financial literacy. They also need agency, confidence, and capacity to make informed choices, earn with dignity, and sustain livelihoods. Life skills are not just nice-to-have, they are the foundation for long-term success in the workforce. Magic Bus India Foundation and Bain & Company's report also indicates that nearly 45% of India's future economic growth will depend on greater female workforce participation. For this to happen, FLFPR must rise to approximately 70% by 2047. Equipping young women with life and employability skills is not just a developmental priority; it is the linchpin of this transformation. These skills unlock pathways to meaningful work, build resilience in the face of adversity, and create a generation of confident, capable women ready to power India's economic and social progress. In empowering them, we prepare a nation for inclusive and sustained growth. In an era where industries and job roles are evolving rapidly, technical skills alone are no longer sufficient. The World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs report (2025) consistently emphasises life skills like problem-solving, collaboration, and adaptability to be essential for employability. In various community-based initiatives, a significant percentage of young women have reported increased confidence, enhanced decision-making capacity, and greater control over financial resources as key indicators of personal agency. These outcomes go beyond employment metrics; they represent pathways to social mobility and markers of generational change. India's future workforce strategy must move beyond short-term job placements to sustainable livelihoods marked by income growth, dignity, and upward mobility. Here is how: While the need for increased workforce participation is universal, the challenges faced by rural and urban women differ significantly. In rural India, women often grapple with foundational challenges such as a lack of transport, childcare, digital access, or safe workplaces. Many are engaged in informal work, without job security or income stability. Solutions here must go beyond skilling to include investments in infrastructure and supportive services like childcare and transportation. In urban areas, the aspiration-reality gap is striking. Despite higher educational attainment, urban women frequently face skill mismatches, wage gaps, and workplace bias. Career breaks due to caregiving only worsen the scenario. These challenges demand inclusive hiring practices, re-entry programmes, and flexible, industry-aligned training pathways. India's demographic dividend will pay off only if young women are equipped not just to survive, but to thrive. This means prioritising life and employability skills, aligning training with market needs, and supporting women through life transitions into dignified jobs and entrepreneurial ventures. Government initiatives such as National Rural Livelihood Mission, the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, Mahila Samriddhi Yojana, and the Women Entrepreneurship Platform are playing a vital role in advancing women's economic inclusion. When combined with supportive infrastructure such as safe commuting options and female-friendly workplaces, these policies and programme create an enabling environment for young women to participate in and thrive within the formal workforce. Every girl and young woman deserve a life of opportunity, dignity, and confidence. Unlocking their potential is not just a moral imperative, it is a sound economic strategy. As India continues to invest in initiatives like Skill India, Digital India, and Startup India, it must place underserved young women at the heart of the strategy because the future of work and the future of the nation depend on it. This article is authored by Arun Nalavadi, chief of programmes, Livelihood, Magic Bus India Foundation.
