NEW DELHI: Having failed in its endeavour to provide 33 per cent reservation to women in Parliament and Assemblies, the Centre on Thursday approved the proposal to amend the Constitution 110th Amendment Bill for enhancing reservation for women at the Panchayat level to at least 50 per cent to ensure better representation particularly of those belonging to SC and ST categories.The meeting of the Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh approved the proposal for addition of 'rural' before 'population' in the Bill.
The Constitution 110th Amendment Bill, 2009 was introduced in the Lok Sabha on November 26, 2009.Briefing the media on the decisions of the Cabinet meeting, Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni said, "That official amendment proposes to add the word 'rural' before the word 'population' as and where the same occur in first proviso of clause 2 (iii) of the Constitution 110th Amendment Bill, 2009."She said that the intention of making the change in the wording was to reflect the appropriate demographic representation of categories of the population for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, for whom especially the reservation was made.The amendment was suggested by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Rural Development.At present, out of the total elected representatives of Panchayats numbering approximately 28.18 lakh, 36.87 percent are women. With the proposed Constitutional Amendment, the number of elected women representatives is expected to rise to more than 14 lakh.Having more elected women representatives in Panchayats is expected to benefit the entire population of the States and Union Territories where Panchayati Raj is in existence. States states, like Bihar, have already made suitable amendments to increase the reservation for women from 33 to 50 per cent.
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