‘Bengal first state to form transgender dev board in 2016’

Kolkata: State Women and Child Development (W&CD) minister Shashi Panja said that Bengal is the first state in the country to have constituted the West Bengal Transgender Persons Development Board in 2016, much ahead of the Central Act on transgender.

“There was a welfare board for transgender in Maharashtra and Tamilnadu but Bengal is the first state to have formed a Development Board for transgender thanks to the visionary thinking of our Chief

Minister Mamata Banerjee,” Panja said in response to TMC MLA Mohammad Ali’s plea for socio finance security for the transgender community during the ‘Mention’ case session in the state Assembly. Ali said that the transgender community is often subjected to ostracization which acts as an economic barrier for them leading them to take to begging. “The district magistrates have been appointed as nodal officers and the transgender through a self declaration can now procure a certificate of their sex.

Such certificate is important for them for getting employment,” Panja said.

She further claimed that as the chairman of the Development Board she has felt that social acceptance is the main demand of the community and not pension or any reservation in jobs.