Govt to ensure proper ID cards, health facilities to transgenders

NEW DELHI: The Delhi government will ensure that the transgender community in the Capital receives proper identification cards of their own choice of sexual identity. The government will also ensure health facilities to these people.

Delhi Social Welfare Minister Rajendra Pal Gautam has already finalised a committee for this job and to prepare a status report on this issue. A nine-member committee has been finalised and by this week the government will make it official, asserted sources.

"The Committee will be finalised by this week. We have already selected the people who will be present in this committee," said an official.

The official added that the committee will comprise people from the transgender community, parents of transgender children, doctors, activists and a lawyer.

"We have planned to keep deputy director level officials in the committee," he added.

The official further said that the government earlier used to give only financial assistance to the transgenders. But, with time, it has realised the need of doing more for the community.

"Recently, there was a Supreme Court recommendation regarding what kind of facilities transgenders should get. We will include all these points in our scheme," the official added.

In a recent meeting, Gautam stressed that the transgender community does not get proper ID cards of their sexual choice and also they do not get proper health facilities.

"The minister has directed that the committee should look at the education, economic condition, identity crisis problem and health care," he said.

In 2014, the Supreme Court had, for the first time, identified transgender people as a "third gender", affirming their fundamental rights and giving them the right to self-identification either as male, female or third gender.

The official, meanwhile, claimed that the transgenders continue to be trapped in an identity crisis.

"The Board will incorporate the recommendations of the committee in its report. The government will then initiate schemes for their development and give them equality in society," he said.

The Committee will also undertake a comprehensive survey on the conditions of the transgenders in the Capital and compile information pertaining to education, employment, health schemes and the status of the constitutional rights of transgender citizens.

Reports collated by an NGO have suggested that a large part of the transgender community has to resort to begging or soliciting money at celebratory occasions, owing to the lack of mainstream employment among them.

Meanwhile, fear of discrimination and bullying discourages members of the community to attend schools or colleges, which has resulted in a majority of their members remaining ill-educated.

Earlier this year, Gautam had said that the Aam Aadmi Party-led Delhi government plans to conduct a detailed survey, with the help of different agencies, to find out about the socio-economic condition of Delhi's transgender population, so as to know the challenges and difficulties they face.