Bill seeking to make it easier for women to adopt on the anvil

A Bill seeking to make it easier for women to adopt children is likely to be tabled in the monsoon session of Parliament.

"Amendments are to be brought in the Hindu Maintenance Act and Hindu Guardian and Wards Act," chairperson of the Parliamentary Committee on Personnel, public grievances and law and justice, Jayanthi Natarajan said today.
     
She said certain amendments have been proposed to remove
"discrimination" against women, especially unmarried and
widows.

After chairing a meeting of the Committee here, she told reporters that the Standing Committee has been entrusted with the task of eliciting views on this matter and has found favourable response, especially from state governments. 

She expressed the hope that the Bill would be passed in the monsoon session itself.

On today's meeting the committee had with representatives of state government, judiciary and public sector undertakings, she said the focus was on ensuring "certain flexibility" to women employees in terms of professional benefits.

"Very often women get left behind as they have family commitments. Since they cannot accept promotional transfers,
their promotion gets affected. The Committee is considering
whether it is possible to give some weightage to ensure that
women don't suffer too much in terms of promotion due to
family responsibilities," she said.
 
The flexibility in terms of leave, vacation and promotion was discussed and PSUs had promised to consider these, she said.

The committee also discussed workplace harassment of
women employees in government departments and PSUs, Natarajan said, adding the Centre was mulling enacting a law in this regard which would also cover the private sector at a later
stage.

Infrastructure facilities, appointments in subordinate courts and possibility of courts functioning in shifts also came up for discussion, she said.