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.
While stating this here today, the Urban Local Bodies Minister, Kavita Jain, said that the practice of proxy attendance by relatives of women councillors in the meetings of the municipalities was of "great concern".
She said that the present government was giving impetus to ensure increased participation of women in politics and in decision-making so as to fully empower them.
At present, 42 per cent representation in the municipalities was 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 would not develop and grow, Jain said.
In such circumstances, the initiative, taken by the present government to politically empower them, would be completely lost, she said.
More From This Section
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 principal secretary, Urban Local Bodies, had issued directions 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, 1973 and Section 52 of the Haryana Municipal Corporation Act, 1994 to ensure accelerated development of the urban areas.