Awareness of social welfare and rural development programmes by rural women in Andhra Pradesh

Abstract

Women and children together constitute 65.6 percent of the country’s population and account 673.80 million, as it was anticipated in 2001. After independence, the Government of India predominantly implemented welfare-oriented initiatives for women. Present study was conducted in Bapatla district of Andhra Pradesh to know the awareness of rural women on women and child development and rural development programmes. A total of 40 women were selected through random sampling method. Data was collected by using structured interview schedule and analysed by using frequency, percentage, class interval and indices. It revealed that, most (77.50%) of the respondents belonged to young age group, majority (85.00%) of the respondents belonged to scheduled caste (SC) category, a little more than one third (35.00%) of the respondents had education level up to intermediate, majority of the women were married and belongs to small and nuclear families. Overall awareness index was 60.00, most (67.50%) of the respondents had medium level of awareness. The government should conduct awareness campaigns, programmes through local governance bodies to disseminate the information among rural areas.