Women councillors who skip meetings to be fired
CHANDIGARH/GURUGRAM: To prevent the practice of proxy attendance in meetings of municipalities, the Haryana government has decided to remove women councillors if they remained absent for more than three consecutive meetings and their relatives represented them.
Stating this in Chandigarh on Monday, urban local bodies (ULB) minister Kavita Jain said the practice of proxy attendance by relatives of women councillors in the meetings of the municipalities was of “great concern”.
She said the present government was giving impetus to ensure increased participation of women in politics and decision-making so as to fully empower them.
At present, 42% representation in the municipalities is that of women.
“If instead of raising their voices to express their opinion on their own, they allowed their relatives to do so, their political abilities will not develop. In such circumstances, the initiative, taken by the present government to politically empower women councillors, would be completely lost,” Jain said.
The decision to remove the women councillors in case they allowed their relatives to represent them and remained absent in three successive meetings of the municipalities has been taken to ensure that the elected women councillors attended the meetings.
The urban local bodies princi- pal secretary had issued direc- tions in this regard to all the commissioners, municipal corporations, executive officer, municipal councils and secretary, municipal committees.
They have also been directed to hold the meetings of the municipalities once in a month in consonance with Section 25 of the Haryana Municipal Committees Act and Section 52 of the Haryana Municipal Corporation Act to ensure accelerated development of the urban areas.
In Gurugram, 15 of the 35 wards are represented by women councillors.
Gurugram mayor and councillor of Ward 7 Madhu Azad said she supported the decision. She added that such a step will strengthen the “position of women in state politics”.
“There was a practice among the previous set of councillors that male members of a woman councillor’s family would attend all meetings on her behalf. One of the first decisions I took after becoming the mayor was to put an end to this practice,” she said.
“The new set of women councillors in Gurugram are extremely active. So far, they have been present for all House meetings.” Azad said.
The mayor added that women councillors would not be able to understand the issues faced by residents of their respective wards if they did not step out in the field. “Hence, the decision actually empowers them,” Azad said.