Ministry of Women and Child Development: Central ministries employ only 11 Percent women

By: WE Staff | Monday, 20 March 2023

On March 17, BJP member Dilip Saikia inquired about the participation of women in the executive, legislative, and administrative branches with the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development.

According to Smriti Irani, the Union Minister for Women and Child Development, there are 82 female members of the Lok Parliament and 724 women stood for office in the 2019 general elections. In comparison to the 2014 elections, when there were just 68 women in the Lok Sabha, she said that there are 15.12% more female MPs now. Also, as of March 16, there were 33 female MPs in the Rajya Sabha, making up 13.6% of the entire body. Political parties have long called for a 33% reservation for women in the legislature, but despite several introductions, the Bill has never been enacted by the Houses.

It was originally launched in 1988, then again in 1999, and then in 2008, while Deve Gowda was the Prime Minister of the United Front administration. It expired in the Lok Sabha for the last time in 2014.

The Minister further mentioned that the Council of Ministers has 11 female ministers. Also, according to the 2011 Central Government Employees Census conducted by the Directorate General of Employment & Training, Ministry of Labour and Employment, there were 30,87,278 total employees across all Central Ministries/Departments, 3,37,439 of them were female. As a result, there are 10.9% of women work for the Central Ministerial.

The State Police was the state subject, and the Ministry was unable to offer information on the number of women employed there. Yet, it stated that reservations for women are made during recruiting in more than 20 states, albeit to various degrees. According to the India Justice Report, which was published in July of last year, just 10.5% of all police officers in the country's states and UTs are female.

Similar information was presented to the Lok Sabha during the budget sessions of the previous year. Then-minister of state for home affairs Nityanand Rai, citing data from the Bureau of Police Research and Development, said that women make up 10.3% of the police force in India, with Bihar having the highest percentage (25.3%), followed by Himachal Pradesh (19.15%), and Chandigarh (18.78%).

The Constitution's Article 243D, which deals with Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI), guarantees at least one-third of the seats to women. But 21 states offer 50% female reservation, including Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Tripura, Uttarakhand, and West Bengal. According to real-time data, more than 46% of PRI members are women nationwide.