Patna: Welcoming the Nari Shakti Vandan Bill for reservation to women, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Tuesday demanded provision for quota for the backward and extremely backward classes in it.
Through his social account on Tuesday, Kumar hailed the centre’s move emphasizing his demand for making provision for reservation for backward and extremely backward women as has been made for the scheduled caste and Scheduled tribe in the bill.
Kumar said that according to the proposed bill, the women’s reservation would be implemented after the census and delimitation of the constituencies. He suggested completing the census at the earliest as it was due in 2021 itself.
He also suggested conducting a caste survey along with the general census to give adequate benefit to the women. Had the Caste Census been done earlier, the reservation for women belonging to Backward and Extremely Backward classes could have been implemented immediately, he quipped. It is only then that women would be benefited in a true sense, added Kumar.
Kumar reiterated that he was in favour of women’s empowerment since the beginning and took several steps for it in Bihar under which 50% reservation in panchayat was given in 2006 followed by the same in the Civic body elections. Apart from this 50% reservation his government has provided to the women while hiring them as teachers and 35% reservation has been given to the women folk in government jobs.
The Chief Minister said that a minimum of 33% of seats in medical, Engineering and sports universities have been reserved for girls.
In s bid to empower women, Kumar said that he started JEEVIKA to organise women into Self Help Groups. Inspired by it, the Central government started the Aajeevika programme on similar lines. As of now, 10.47 lakh Self Help Groups have been formed, having over 1.3 crore women as JEEVIKA Didis, he informed.
