NEW DELHI: Giving a call for change of mindset to see women ’s development as social investment, Union minister Smriti Irani on Saturday challenged indices that rate a country merely on parameters of inequality, maternal mortality rate and women’s participation in the work force. She said conventional international templates should be reoriented as “the India story needs to be told in the proper context” as the country had taken “gigantic steps” on gender parity.

Speaking at the Economic Times Global Business Summit, the women and child development minister said, “One of the greatest disservices we do to women with regard to policy is when we look at them as social expenditure. Under PM Modi , the narrative is such that I would like it to be known as a ministry for social investment.”

She said in enhancing capacities of women, one needs to understand that there has to be a life-cycle approach. “We are in a time-frame in India where we look at women as enablers of our growth story.”

Asked about her views on the talk around India’s ranking on inequality index, she said, “One of the greatest disservices done to our country’s capacity, especially to serve the issue of gender have been indices which possibly have not done the number crunching with the current data.”

“For instance, they would look at health parameters from the only from the perspective of maternal mortality rate. No other parameter matters for them. Even if you look at the MMR in our country we are way ahead of the SDG deadlines. When we were calculated on the Global Inequality Index they calculated our MMR at 174 whereas the MMR was 122,” she said.

“... when they look at the economic empowerment of women, they only look at them from a labour prism. Are women who are entrepreneurs and owners of small businesses not to be counted. So what about those 150 million women who took the MUDRA loan and are not labour for anybody but run their small businesses. Where are they to be counted?” she asked.

