'Wages for homemakers' evokes mixed response

New Delhi: Women and Child Development Ministry's proposal of salaries for housewives has elicited mixed reactions. While the husbands are still figuring out the details, women's rights groups claim it's not a well thought-out proposal.

'Homemakers should be empowered and paid to maintain their households' was an idea that the Women and Child Development (WCD) Ministry came up with at a recent meeting.

WCD Minister of Delhi, Kiran Walia said that the proposal was for empowering women.

Women\'s groups claim that the proposal may affect household relationships like that between a mother and child.

But the question that arose was how to implement such a seemingly impossible plan. The WCD Ministry asked the Ministry of Statistics to evaluate the number of hours women put in household work.

Fifty five-year-old homemaker Savitri Devi has welcomed the move.

But women's groups say the idea raises several questions.

Director of the Centre for Social Research, Ranjana Kumari said, "The proposal will affect the relationships between a mother and a child and a husband and his wife."

The idea to pay housewives may be impossible to implement but it's an idea that has nevertheless opened a debate in the public domain.

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