Click to play videoNew Delhi: Gender bias is a hush, hush subject in the civil services, but Union Woman and Child Development Minister Renuka Chowdhury is not going to keep quiet about it.
In a letter to Cabinet Secretary B K Chaturvedi, the minister has complained that women officers in the civil services are getting their due. "I write to draw your attention to the prevailing gender inequality in the services," says Chowdhury’s letter to the nation’s top bureaucrat.
The minister’s letter for the first time admits that there is gender bias in government services—both at the Centre and in the states. Many serving and retired civil servants will vouch for that.
"When T N Seshan was made Cabinet Secretary, there was a bright and senior-most female officer who was overlooked for the post. Roma Mazumdar was in commerce ministry, and she was the seniormost in our batch. She was sent to Brussels and Mr Seshan became the Cabinet Secretary," says former bureaucrat Binu Sen.
The immediate provocation for Chowdhury writing the letter seems to be a bureaucratic reshuffle. Three months ago, Rewa Nayyar, who was then Child Development Secretary, was in the reckoning for the Cabinet Secretary's post. Four other IAS officers were also in the reckoning but Nayyar was the favourite.
Had she been selected, Nayyar would have become India’s first woman Cabinet Secretary. However, to everyone’s surprise, current incumbent Chaturvedi was given an extension.
Some believe that women officials are not willing to take up hard postings. "You have to remember one thing: women are reluctant to take field postings. Women are handicapped in Indian conditions - travelling, being alone in rural areas, these are all problems. We have to accept these handicaps," says former cabinet secretary T S R Subramanium.
The minister disagrees and in the letter says woman civil servants be posted in all key sectors as a routine to give them proper exposure.
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