Minister of Women and Child Development and Minister of Textiles, Smriti Irani, launched a special campaign 'Empowering the Greater 50%', a FICCI and FLO initiative spearheaded by Dr Sangita Reddy, President, FICCI.

This is not just an initiative but a movement as FICCI and FLO reaffirm their commitment towards creating a suitable ecosystem to support women entrepreneurship and to celebrate women empowerment.

Addressing the participants at the launch event, Irani said that this is an opportunity where the government and private sector efforts can converge.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced a stimulus package of Rs 20 lakh crore which will also empower women and provide financial assistance to the women associated with self-help groups, she said, and added that FICCI-FLO can look at this as an opportunity to collaborate.

The Minister said that the time of the 'Greater 50' has come and FICCI-FLO partnership should ensure that 'Empowering the Greater 50%' initiative becomes an inspiration story for the entire world.

Irani further mentioned that quintessential shaping of the future of girls needs equal emphasis with an added focus on science and technology, and said that emancipation of women is no longer only limited to women. She added that technology can be leveraged to create better opportunities for women.

Sangita Reddy said, "Increasing women's labour force participation by 10 percentage points could add $70 billion to India's GDP by 2025 -- highest relative GDP growth of 18 per cent above business as usual." She added that women in entrepreneurship can generate transformational employment in India with 150-170 million job opportunities, which is more than 25% of the new jobs required for the entire working age population by 2030.

Reddy said that women empowerment opens doors to better ways of life ensuring change for the betterment of society. At the launch of 'Empowering the Greater 50%' initiative, she added, "I invite each one of you to join us impact the lives of 100K women." 

Jahnabi Phookan, National President, FLO said that with the vision of empowering women's inclusion at every level of the economy and enterprise, this joint FICCI-FLO initiative is designed to create conversation and connect professionals, provide advice to help women achieve career success as well as focus on critical enablers to create impact. The stated target is to impact the lives of 1,00,000 women in India over the next 12-18 months, she added.

India is at a critical crossroads today facing the dual challenge of attaining a sustained high growth trajectory and inclusive growth to be one of the top three largest economies in the world. While several interventions have helped bridge the gap, women today in India are still undervalued and underrepresented.

Thus, channelizing and nurturing the women talent for a young and new-age economy like India is quintessential for India's growth. The economic impact of achieving gender equality in India is estimated to be US$700 billion of added GDP by 2025.