A bench of the Telangana High Court on Tuesday asked the State government to consider granting Aasara pensions and other benefits to eligible transgenders and update GO 17 to facilitate this. Hearing a PIL filed by Vyjayanti Vasantha Mogli outlining the struggles faced by the transgender community in society.
The petitioner had requested various reliefs such as food security cards, medications, including HIV and hormone treatment, and so on. The PIL, which was submitted during the peak of Covid-19, had also sought dedicated vaccination centres for transgenders, as well as free food/rations.
The bench, comprising Chief Justice Ujjal Bhuyan and Justice CV Bhaskar Reddy heard counsel Jayna Kothari, appearing for the petitioner, who said that there were around 58,000 transgenders in the State at the time of filing of the petition and approximately 12,000 had been vaccinated.
She stated that specific initiatives for transgender individuals had been implemented in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh and that similar schemes may be implemented in Telangana. Counsel also urged the court to direct the government to issue Aadhar and other identity cards to transgenders so that they can benefit from various programmes like as 2BHK houses, old age pensions, and so on.