Industry needs to step up on gender issues: Smriti Irani

Union Women and Child Development Minister Smriti Irani said the industry needs to step up on gender issues. “Women know that the companies have a legislative framework of giving 26 weeks of maternity leave but they are scared to use it as they look upon it as an opportunity for the company to offload them. We are today at a precipice of a very dichotomous position, where the government has been providing a framework which the industry has been mulling for over years and it is the industry which is not stepping up,” Irani said at Fortune India's Most Powerful Women Awards 2024, where she also unveiled Fortune India – SPJIMR White Paper, Enhancing Women Leadership In India Inc.

The White Paper prepared in collaboration with SPJIMR points out that barely 1.6% of Fortune 500 companies in India have women MDs and CEOs. In The Next 500, a ranking of emerging companies, the number is slightly higher at 5% but overall, for the Fortune 1000 India companies, only 3.2% are led by women MD/CEOs, the White Paper reveals.