Maharashtra to raise seat quota for women
Local self-government bodies show the way
Mumbai: Even before the women's reservation Bill is cleared, the Maharashtra state government plans to increase its quota for women in local self-government bodies from 33 per cent to 50 per cent.
This is because the reservation at the villages and district levels has brought women to the helm of affairs, where they have proved to be as good or better than their male counterparts. This, however, is not seen at the state or national level.
There are only 11 women legislators in the current 288-member Maharashtra state assembly, which will go up to a strength of 95 once the 33 per cent Women's Reservation Bill comes into place. The legislative council has just six women among 78 legislators. Only three women were elected to the Lok Sabha in 2009. In future, 15 of 48 Lok Sabha seats will be reserved for women.
So far, women's representation has been poor but it is felt once the Bill is cleared, competition among women activists within political parties will build up. It is also felt that the current trend of fielding wives, daughters and daughters-in-law of senior politicians in elections would gradually fade as real democratisation sets in.
When the Bill went through the first hurdle in the Rajya Sabha three days back, it was hailed as a milestone in the country's history. Chief Minister Ashok Chavan said: "This is a significant step towards empowering women. I'm also happy because Maharashtra was the first state to start this kind of reservation for women."
In 1994, the state introduced 33 per cent reservation for women in urban and rural local self-government bodies as part of its women's policy. One third of the seats in gram panchayats (local government at the village level), panchayat samitis (at block level) and zilla parishad (district governing bodies) as well as municipal councils were reserved for women.
Now the Maharashtra government wants to ask the central government to raise women's reservation to 50 per cent for all local self-governing bodies.
The quota at the local level brought in a wave of committed women in villages who began addressing the core issues in their environment — health, education, sanitation, drinking water and so forth. Out of 27,909 village panchayats in the state, 9,210 sarpanch (head of a panchayat) seats are reserved for women.
