Role of small scale industry and women empowerment: A case study in carpet industry of Bhadohi district, U.P.

The status of women in the society is an index of its civilization. Women as co-human beings have as much right to full development as man have and so emancipation of women is an essential prerequisite for economic development. In India 30% of total population live below the poverty line of which 70% are women.The employment effects of economic women as human resource in India constitute about 50% of population, women are driving force behind 70% of small scale industry with 35% family dependent on them. In this context small scale industry proved the best option for women employment and to empower them. The most populous developing country, India is struggling with the crucial problem of unemployment. To generate the employment opportunity, Small Scale Industry (SSI) has proved one of the best solutions and it contributes 8 percent of India's GDP. SSI has a dynamic characteristic of employment generation because it involves the intricate manner of manufacturing. In India, total numbers of SSI units are 311.52 lakh and which employed 732.17 lakh work force of India.

India is known for its rich heritage of art and craft and each regions of it depicts their own specialty, for example Varanasi is famous for its silk Sari, Firozabad for its bangles, Aligarh for its lock industry and Bhadohi for its carpet industry. Each industry involves a great effort of manpower and providing better opportunity of livelihood. It generates employment to different categories of society whether they are educated or not. The present paper is trying to highlight the significance and importance of carpet industry in employment generation, specially the women participation in carpet industry, the income level of women workers and their educational level. It has been also attempted to draw attention towards the various problems faced by the carpet industry as well as other SSI units in India and suggest the measures to solve out the problems regarding the carpet industry. The whole paper is based on both primary and secondary sources of data collected through field survey by questionnaire and from the government offices of Bhadohi.