The government has taken many steps to allocate additional funds to ensure participation of women in the field of Science and Technology by enhancing the scope of gender enabling programmes. In reply to a written question in the Rajya Sabha today Minister of State for Science and Technology Ashwani Kumar said a scheme Disha has been formulated in the 12th Five Year Plan to ensure the participation of women in the Science and Technology sector by restructuring existing schemes and adding new component to address mobility of women scientists due to family compulsions.
The Minister said that existing initiatives also include the women scientists scholarship scheme . Mr Ashwani Kumar said that the department of Biotechnology has been supporting women scientists by providing research grants since 2009. He also enumerated other measure in this connection.