Tripura reserves 50 percent of local body seats for women

Agartala, Jan 22(ANI): What it can be termed as a significant step towards giving more powers to women in northeastern states, the Tripura Government on Friday decided to reserve 50 per cent seats for them in local bodies.

Chief Minister Manik Sarkar told media here that the State Cabinet had discussed the issue and cleared the proposal.

He told Cabinet has agreed to the Centre's amendment of Article 243(D) of the Constitution to reserve 50 per cent of the total number of seats for women in urban and rural local bodies.

"The ruling Left Front is always in favour of empowering women and bringing them in the process of decision making," Sarkar said

"So we have made a study of the proposal of reservation for women in local bodies in different levels and finally the Council of Ministers approved it," he added.

Tripura has a three-tier local body system-village panchayat, Taluk/ Block Panchayat and Zila Panchayat and in Urban areas the state has Nagar Palikas. (ANI)