New Delhi: The Bihar government has changed the condition of domicile for women who want to apply for government jobs under reservation quota in the state. Simply put, now a woman from Bihar living outside the state after marriage can avail benefits of reservation if her father is a permanent resident of the state.
According to the Indian Express, the General Administration Department (GAD) issued a letter on September 2, clarifying whether a married woman could get benefits of reservation on the basis of the caste of her father or not.
The letter said, “Those women whose fathers are domicile of Bihar cannot be deprived of benefits of reservation only because of their residential certificates are issued on the basis of their husbands’ addresses.”
It added that “the basis of an individual being eligible for reservation would be decided on the basis of the caste of father of the individual.”
One can have more than one residence but only one domicile certificate at a time.
But as most married women use the residential addresses of their husbands and several of them are married outside the caste of their birth, the state government decided that the father’s domicile and caste will be considered for giving reservation benefits, the report added.
The letter, addressed to all the government heads, referred to a 1996 government order that required one to be a “domicile of Bihar” for availing of reservation benefits. The letter also referred to a 2007 order of the state government to decide the caste of an applicant.
With the new changes, a married woman candidate has to present a non-creamy layer certificate, or an Other Backward Class certificate, issued by the circle office under which her father’s village or town falls.
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The move is in line with a slew of measures taken up by the Nitish Kumar government over the years for women’s empowerment.
In 2006, Bihar became the first state to announce 50% reservation for women in panchayat bodies – a move that saw women capturing half of the panchayat body seats in the election that year. The state government had also implemented 50% reservation for women in teacher recruitment.
Bihar also provides free education to girl students till the post-graduation level in the State.
In June last year, the government announced at least 35% reservation for women in government jobs. It is also likely to advertise about four lakh vacancies for contract teachers in a phased manner within a year, news reports said.
Meanwhile, it’s also important to note the state’s dismal record when it comes to female labour force participation.
In Bihar, only 6.4% of women are employed in urban areas and 3.9% in rural regions, according to the National Sample Survey Office’s ‘Employment and Unemployment in India’ survey for 2011-12. The all-India figures stand at 20.4% and 24.6%, respectively. Among the reasons for low participation were patriarchal social norms that restrict women to the confines of family, unpaid care work and under-recognition of their work.
As per the 2011 Census, Bihar’s female literacy rate – at 53.33% – is the second lowest after Rajasthan’s 52.66%.