BENGALURU: The state government, which recently decided to reserve 33 per cent government jobs for women, is now facing pressure to initiate a special recruitment drive to bridge the gender gap in government services.
“After succeeding in forcing the state government to reserve about 33 per cent of its jobs for women, we have now plans to recommend it to fill up the backlog posts for women,” Malikayya Guttedar, chairman of the Legislative Committee on Women and Children Welfare, told Express.
Complimenting the state government for complying with the recommendations of the Legislative panel, he said, “There is a large gender gap in senior Class, Class-I and Class-II cadre of the state government employees which needs to be bridged on priority.”
According to official sources, women constitute about 1,65,120 of the 5,31,380 state government employees, accounting for 31.07 per cent.
The Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms (DPAR), the nodal department to deal with the formulation of rules and guidelines in the recruitment process of state employees, was however apprehensive to comply with the panel.
In a written submission, the DPAR officials had raised practical difficulties in identifying and filling up the backlog posts for the women and stated, “It may open a Pandora’s box and similar demands may come from other categories.”
Senior Congress legislator and former chairperson of the Legislative Committee on Women and Children, Shakuntala Shetty, told Express that the state which
has accepted the proposal for a quota of 33 per cent for women in state recruitment has to take the process to next level now.