Future Female Forward | Rise in Telangana's per capita income can largely be attributed to women, says top official

The state of Telangana in India recently celebrated its ninth anniversary since its formation. Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has expressed his desire to transform Telangana into a women welfare state and has introduced several initiatives to support women's empowerment and entrepreneurship.

Telangana takes pride in being the home of India's first state-led incubator for women, known as WE-Hub. Additionally, the state houses India's first all-women's industrial park. Telangana also boasts of one of the highest populations of working women in the country.

Jayesh Ranjan, the Principal Secretary of Industries & Commerce and Information Technology in the Telangana government, highlighted that the rise in the state's per capita income can largely be attributed to women. Over the years, the per capita income of Telangana has increased by 130 percent since 2014. This remarkable growth has been achieved through the government's efforts to mobilise women at the grassroots level by forming self-help groups, enhancing their capabilities, and providing them with support.

"One of the most significant achievements of Telangana government has been the phenomenal rise in the per capita income. The states per capita income has risen by 130 percent from what it was in 2014. A significant part of it has been contributed by women and it has happened because the government has taken lot of efforts to mobilise women at the grassroots into very strong receiving mechanism. Governments typically all over the world are considered to be welfare oriented but not much attention is paid on who is there to receive whatever the government is giving. So that effort has been made in Telangana to form self-help groups, strengthening them, building their capacities etc," Ranjan said.

The government's programmes targeted at both urban and rural women have created an environment conducive to innovation and entrepreneurship, Ranjan added.

Surendra Rosha, Co-CEO of HSBC Asia Pacific, believes that India has a significant opportunity to lead the way in establishing more diverse and inclusive organisations. Research consistently shows that diverse and inclusive organisations tend to be more productive.

According to Rosha, increasing female participation rates in the G20 countries, for example, could potentially add around $5.8 trillion to the GDP over the next 5-6 years. This realisation is driving enterprises in many markets, including India, to focus on fostering female participation in the workforce.

"There is a whole lot of research that talks about why being a more diverse, more inclusive organisation makes you more productive. However if you take statistics, in the G20 countries if we were to increase female participation rates, then we would add approximately 5.8 trillion to the GDP over the next 5-6 years. When it comes to enterprises that work in the ecosystem in many of these markets, they recognise this. I think what is really important is from a India perspective is, we have a young population, there are more people joining the workforce and if you look to nations that are ageing, you will realise that one of the gaps many of them have is they don't have enough participation by women in the workforce to overcome what the ageing population is now creating. So we have a real opportunity to set a base," Rosha said.

Rosha also mentioned that HSBC is committed to promoting gender diversity and has established a $1 billion fund dedicated to supporting female entrepreneurs. He added that the company aims to have 35 percent women in senior leadership positions globally by 2025 and ultimately achieve gender parity.