While the government and the industry talk a lot about women empowerment in the textile and apparel sector, one may wonder if it all has any links to ground realities.
They would be surprised, pleasantly in fact, to know that the Ministry of Textiles has a good number of women serving under it, with a substantial number being at its top level.
Right at the top, we have Secretary Rashmi Verma and Additional Secretary Pushpa Subrahmanyam, who has key responsibilities of the department assigned to her, like Technlogy Upgradation Fund Scheme (TUFS), North East Matters (NER Textile Promotion Sheme), all policy and planning of the Ministry and O/o DC(HL) & O/o DC(HC), Vigilance matters and Starred Parliament Questions.
Out of the four joint Secretaries, three are women — Sunaina Tomar, handling Export / International Trade NIFT, Vigilance, Silk including Silk Mega Clusters; Anu Garg, who takes care of . NTC/BIC, Work Relating to Commissioner of Payments Cotton, Technical Textiles, R&D / TRAs, Parliament Matters, Skill Development (ISDS); and Geeta Narayan, who is responsible for Wool, Establishment, Cash and General Administration, Including Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, all matters relating to the office of Textile Commissioner and Textile Committee, including Geographical Indications. The list also includes Babni Lal, Economic Advisor and Jaya Dubey, Director.
All these senior officials are currently working under the MoT. If you thought that this is something new about that Ministry, then you are very wrong. Because in the past too, the Ministry has had the privilege of being served by the likes of Rita Menon, Zohra Chatterji and Kiran Dhingra (all textile secretaries).
