Times of India: Lucknow: Wednesday,
April 16, 2014.
The Supreme
Court's landmark verdict on Tuesday granting legal recognition to transgenders
or eunuchs as third gender category promises to go a long way to ameliorate
problems faced by them since Independence. RTI documents on the other hand
reveal that successive governments have shown least concern for uplift of
transgenders, for whom there are no welfare schemes, no reservations, and
importantly not a single paisa spent on their welfare.
In an RTI
reply, the Union ministry of social justice and empowerment admitted "with
reference to (query on) reservation given to transgender community in
government services, it is informed that no separate reservation is given to
transgender persons. However, they are entitled to reservation as per policy of
the government of India available to SC/ST/OBC category, if they belong to
these categories."
On questions
pertaining to the head count of transgenders in the country (the question which
was answered by the office of registrar general & census commissioner,
ministry of home affairs), the reply furnished to the applicant stated that on
the census enumeration sheet, there are three codes mentioning the sex of the
person and the family members.
Code 1 and
code 2 stand for male and female, respectively, while code 3 includes those
belonging to other categories. The RTI reply stated further that any person
including transgender can voluntarily mention themselves in the other category.
There are also possibilities, however, that transgenders may mention themselves
as male or female, due to which their exact count is difficult to be
ascertained.
Lucknow-based
RTI applicant Sanjay Sharma, who also sought information pertaining to
formation of 'Rashtriya Kinnar Aayog' (National Transgender Commission) in the
period from August 15, 1947 to December 31, 2013, was shocked by the answer
(dated January 27, 2014) by the Union ministry of social justice and
empowerment, which said "the ministry of social justice and empowerment
has recently been mandated by the Cabinet Secretariat to deal with the subject
of the transgender".
This ministry
has constituted an expert committee dated October 22, 2013 to look into
problems faced by the transgender community. The committee is expected to
submit its report shortly.
Reacting to
the cold response of the Centre, Sanjay Sharma said "if the Union
government seriously wants to help transgenders, they should have adequate and
sound information about the government orders, which it had issued in this
context and the amount of funds spent on their welfare and under which heads.
The missing or incomplete information in this regard categorically points to
the fact that the Centre is least interested in helping transgenders and only
wants to exploit them politically before the Lok Sabha elections."
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