'Single women bureaucrats should be posted near hometown'

Single women who are government servants should be given postings closest to their hometown or to places of their choice, a parliamentary committee Friday recommended.

Women government servants who travel beyond office hours should be provided with security and proper transport by the employer in order to ensure their safety, said a statement issued here by Shantaram Naik, chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on personnel public grievances, law and justice.

"Members of the committee were of the view that when such women are given postings, it should be mandatorily ensured that they are placed at stations closest to their hometown/place of their choice," said Naik, adding that this "pertinent factor" should be kept in mind during allocation of postings by department heads.

Calling the government an "ideal employer", Naik, a Rajya Sabha MP from Goa, said that it was its responsibility to "enable women employees to work in a very congenial atmosphere".

The committee, he said, had also called for protection officers appointed under laws dealing with women's commissions should be lady officers.

"The committee recommended that all organisations should ensure proper transport facilities to its employees, particularly the women, while commuting to and from place of work beyond office hours, to ensure their safety," he further.

Lamenting the dearth of women government servants in semi urban and rural areas, the committee said that "measures to handle such a situation can be evolved at ground level only so that women workers feel motivated to be part of those organizations too".