From dependency to freedom – Women Empowered in Ujjain

Nagda: Guddi Bai, an underprivileged woman from Palki village near Nagda in Ujjain district of Madhya Pradesh, earns Rs 500 per month stitching clothes during her free time. Like her, over 200 other women have been trained in tailoring at the Mahila Stitching Centre, at Nagda in Madhya Pradesh as part of the CSR initiatives of Grasim Industries Limited, a flagship company of the Aditya Birla Group.

The Mahila Stitching Centre is working towards women empowerment in and around Nagda where Grasim’s VSF plant is located. By imparting training in essential earning skills, the organization is helping these women evolve into self-assured, economically independent individuals. Consequently, it is bringing forth a transformation in the socio-economic landscape of the region.

“I feel confident as my income has helped improve the lives of my family members, especially my children. Earlier, I had nothing to do except household chores once my husband left for work and children went to school. The stitching training has made me self-sufficient and confident,” says Guddi Bai.


Commenting on the success of the program, Mr. Siddhartha Banerji, President, Grasim Industries, Nagda plant (MP) said, “We are involved in creating opportunities for women living in the villages around our factory at Birlagram near Nagda.


 We had been exploring various income generation activities, especially for low income families, and after an in-depth discussion, tailoring was chosen as a good livelihood support activity. The idea was that the women from the remote villages learn to stitch clothes required for their families and neighbours. The Mahila Stitching Centre collaborates with USHA International which administers the exams and awards certificates to successful candidates.” Grasim also provides them with sewing machines on part contribution paid by the stitching enthusiasts. “This help them in two ways – one, they sharpen their skills by practicing more, learn new dress design and secondly they can quickly eke out a livelihood by stitching clothes for the villagers”, adds Mr. Banerji.

Twenty-year-old Sona, who also hails from Palki, is self-employed and earns Rs 1000 per month stitching clothes at home. She learned her skill attending the training programme organized by Grasim. “I thank Grasim for providing me the opportunity to learn sewing and tailoring training over three months. Such initiatives help women like me to become self-employed,” she said.

Since its opening, the Mahila Stitching Centre has trained over 200 women in the basic skill of stitching. The three-month training programme imparts a simple skill to 15-20 women that redefines their social standing, giving them economic freedom and self-confidence.



About Grasim Industries, Birlagram (Nagda)

Grasim Industries, a subsidiary of Aditya Birla Group, is India's pioneer in Viscose Staple Fibre (VSF), a man-made, biodegradable fibre with characteristics akin to cotton. As an extremely versatile and easily blendable fibre, VSF is widely used in apparels, home textiles, dress material, knitted wear and non-woven applications. Grasim's VSF plants are located at Nagda in Madhya Pradesh, Kharach in Gujarat and Harihar in Karnataka, with an aggregate capacity of 352,225 tpa.

Grasim’s Nagda factory is the company’s largest unit producing a wide range of VSF to suit customer requirements in terms of length, denier and colour and also second and third generation fibres like Modal, Excel and Solvent Spun fibres, respectively. Grasim is also the largest producer of spun-dyed specialty fibre in the world.

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Eight Self – Development Tips for Women

Every woman has a responsibility towards herself, as a human being. But the point is very few tell her and remind her that she needs to think of her development also. In most of the cases she is taught, how she has to mould herself so that others stay in their comfort zone.


Hardly there will be few people who would encourage her to develop herself from inside out and remind her that she has a responsibility towards herself as much as she has towards others. Here are some of the points which every women needs to pay attention to and implement them for Self-development.

1) Love Thyself: As a woman loving yourself is not a crime, as you have to show love and respect to others, you also need to show love towards your own self. When you love yourself you can face anything in life and yet bounce back. When you love yourself and you have self esteem, it makes you strong from inside and it reflects in everything you do.

2) ‘You’ Need To Be Happy: You can make others happy only when you are happy. You have a right to keep yourself happy, as much as it is your duty to keep others happy. So, try to develop this state of mind.

3) Keep The Company of Empowering People: Try to surround yourself with those people who inspire you and motivate you to develop yourself into a better person at all levels. When in such a company you will discover the true meaning of live.

4) If You Have a Dream, Go For It: If you have a burning desire to achieve something in life and to succeed in any of your interest. Just go for it don’t suppress it, believe that you can achieve it and go for it.

5) Invest in Self Development: If you are seeking self development, invest time and money to develop your skills, educational qualifications and enhance yourself in every possible and required way. This will help you to improve your career and will increase your net worth also.

6) Stay Fit and Active: To achieve anything in life you need to be fit and active physically and mentally, so don’t never ever neglect this aspect. Pay attention to yourself and lead a disciplined way of life.

7)  Have Some Time to Relax: To lead a stress free life it is sometimes essential to become a child. Relax, have fun, play and do whatever that makes you feel good and energized.

8) Rekindle Your Inner Connection: We hear voices of so many people outside, day and night. But there is also an inner voice that always shows us the right path and guides us but we hardly like listening to it. Take some time out, and listen to that inner voice, and stay connected to it, because it will make your life worth living and easy.

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True Sense of Women Empowerment

Women empowerment! We believe that in this country we don’t need to empower women, if at all we intend to do good to women and for that we need to educate men. Because there has been lot of talk about women empowerment and educating women on matters concerning their rights, facilities, education and employment. But when it comes to reality, what’s happening to all that is all we know and thus women empowerment is not progressing at all.

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Status of women in India

By Jyoti Parida

In the year 1950, the Constitution of India came into existence. It has not only declared that men and women are equal, but also prohibited any kind of discrimination against women. What message does this convey to us? I think that everybody has forgotten this message and trying to prove that man is more powerful than women and he can rule a woman. But I want to know that why most of the men are trying to dominate women by committing crimes against women. But ever man has thought that because of a woman he has came to this earth, so how can he do this. Now I want to say what a woman is. A woman means most beautiful person who sacrifices for her family, having patience to any extent and stands like a mountain under any circumstances.

With the changing scenario, the status of Indian women has been changing. In this modern India where everything is changing day-by-day in the same way women is also coming forward like sparklers coming out from the crackers at night. In India women was & is ruling in some of the higher posts like- Honourable President Pratibha patil, Honourable Prime minister Late Indira Gandhi, Speaker of the Lok Sabha Meira Kumar, Leader of the opposition, Miss world Aishwarya Rai, Miss Universe Susmitha Sen, Indian Civil Services Shena Aggarwal, Rukmani Riar, Ex-IPS Kiran Bedi, ICICI bank CEO Ms Chandha Kochhar, Brittania CEO Vinita Bali, Ekta Kapoor for Balaji Telefilms and many many more. So they have reached to heights by facing so many hurdles both from family and from outside.

Gandhiji always said to call woman the weaker than man is a libel; it is man’s injustice to woman. He has always written so many topics on women. In those books he has given a different status to women and the message is to respect women. So we need to learn something from Gandhian teachings. Women are also proving their ability by giving the above examples. So they really deserve a salute from all of us for their outstanding achievements.

So in this male dominated society if a man’s attitude changes towards women than without committing crime he can start helping his wife in managing family and office, help daughter for her higher studies & give mother a proper position in the family and can also help them to reach their respective goals. If that happens, then from that day everything will be start changing and in everybody’s heart, in every home & in every corner of the country there will be a different status for women.

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