Context
The Bihar government announced 33% horizontal reservation for women in State engineering and medical colleges.
About
- In Uttarakhand, a new bill called the Uttarakhand Public Services (Horizontal Reservation for Women) Bill, 2022, has been introduced. This bill offers women a special 30% reservation in public services and positions, on top of the current quotas already in place in the state.
- To be eligible for this reservation, women must have a domicile certificate from Uttarakhand, establishing their local roots in the state.
- If there aren’t enough qualified women to fill the reserved seats, the remaining positions will be given to deserving male candidates based on their proficiency, ensuring that the positions are filled with capable individuals.
What is Horizontal Reservation?
- Horizontal reservation means giving equal opportunities to various groups like women, veterans, the transgender community, and individuals with disabilities, without sticking to specific categories.
- For instance, if there’s a 50% horizontal quota for women, then half of the chosen candidates must be women in every category — whether they are from Scheduled Castes, the general category, or any other group.
- Unlike vertical reservation, which is specific to individual groups, horizontal reservation is applied separately to each category. So, for example, half of the selected candidates from Scheduled Castes, half from the general category, and so on, must be women.
Why Horizontal Reservation of Women has to be adopted?
This initiative should be welcomed and adopted across sectors, departments, and States for various benefits. Such as,
- Hey, did you know that the percentage of women working in India has been dropping and it’s a real concern? According to the World Bank, in 2019, only 21% of women were in the workforce, compared to 31.79% in 2005.
- It’s not just a random stat – there’s solid proof that having more women working can actually supercharge the economy. So, it’s kind of a big deal for governments to create more job opportunities specifically for women.
Other such role model initiatives by the Bihar government
- Back in 2006, Bihar took the lead by setting aside half of the seats in Panchayati Raj institutions just for women. This move paved the way for other states like Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Chhattisgarh to follow suit.
- In the same year, they introduced a cool program called Mukhyamantri Balika Cycle Yojana. It was like a big deal because it was the first time in India that they started giving money to girls in high school if they went to class 9 or 10. Thanks to this plan, more girls started going to school.
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