India News | Maha Cabinet Expands Scope of 1 Pc Quota to Orphans; Okays Creation of Hostels for Working Women
Get latest articles and stories on India at LatestLY. The Maharashtra cabinet on Wednesday gave its approval to widen the scope of one per cent reservation given to orphans in government jobs and education in order to enable maximum benefit to the beneficiaries.
Mumbai, Aug 11 (PTI) The Maharashtra cabinet on Wednesday gave its approval to widen the scope of one per cent reservation given to orphans in government jobs and education in order to enable maximum benefit to the beneficiaries.
As per the decision taken in the state cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, apart from the one per cent reservation, orphans will get concessions in examination fees, and they will be offered scholarships for education and reimbursement of tuition fees.
In order to create safe environment for women in urban areas, the state cabinet also decided to provide hostel facilities to them, state Women and Child Development Minister Yashomati Thakur told reporters after the cabinet meeting.
Orphans will now be classified into three categories to extend appropriate benefit of quota, she said.
"The decision to provide one per cent quota to orphans had been taken in April 2018.. However, now it has been decided to improve the classification of orphans as it is not possible to give justice to the case of children who have lost both parents, children who have lost both parents but were raised in an institution for children or orphans, and orphans who are being looked after by relatives," she said.
"It has been decided to classify orphans into three categories- 'A', 'B' and 'C' as it is not appropriate to give a single general judgment in different cases," she said.
Category 'A' will include completely orphaned children who do not have parents, siblings, close relatives, and whose village, taluka, address is not available, the minister added.
"If it is not possible to issue a caste certificate and verify a caste validity due to technical reasons even if the caste is not mentioned or mentioned in the documents of the child whose parents are deceased, then they will be put in category 'B'. However, this will include children who have been raised in an institution or orphanage working for children, Thakur said.
Category 'C' will include children whose parents have died before the age of 18 years, but whose relatives are still alive and have taken care of the child and also has information about the caste, the minister said.
It has been decided to provide concessions to the children from 'A' and 'B' category in jobs, reservation in education and scholarships under education, reimbursement of tuition fees, she added.
"While implementing the reservation, the percentage will be calculated on overall posts rather than the vacant posts. The amount of this reservation shall not exceed one per cent of the total cadre number. Quota in employment will not be applicable to children from category 'C', but reservation in education as well as scholarships under education, reimbursement of tuition fees, etc will be available to them," she said.
Orphans in all three categories will be given concessions in age limit, tuition fees and examination fees as per Scheduled Castes (SC). Also, the pattern of orphan certificates issued to orphans will be improved and the process of distribution of certificates will be facilitated, which will greatly reduce the hassle in the process of orphans, Thakur added.
"In order to create safe environment for women in urban areas, the state cabinet has decided to provide hostel facilities for working women or who are under training for their jobs. The state government has decided to set up four hostels each in Mumbai, Thane and Pune, six in Mumbai suburbs. Such hostels are going to be set up in 32 districts," she said.
The hostels will be set up in association with the central government and NGOs, the minister said, adding that the Centre will bear 60 per cent of the total cost, whereas state's share will be 15 per cent and that of NGOs will be 25 per cent.
The capacity of each hostel will be in the range of 25-100 and first preference will be given to working women, whereas women who are under training for jobs will be facilitated later.
"Fifteen per cent of the total salary will be charged for a single woman, 10 per cent of the salary will be charged for two women and 7.5 per cent of the salary for dormitory. Women who are under training for jobs will be charged Rs 3,000 for a single place and Rs 2,000 for a pair," she said.
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)