The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment has constituted the National Council for Transgender Persons, a requirement under the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019.
A notification by the Ministry on August 21 stated that the Social Justice Minister would be the chairperson of the Council and members would include officials of the Ministries of Health and Family Welfare, Home Affairs, Housing and Urban Affairs, Minority Affairs, Human Resources Development, Rural Development and Labour and Employment, the Department of Legal Affairs, the Department of Pensions and Pensioners Welfare and the NITI Aayog.
The council also includes five nominated members from the transgender community — Laxmi Narayan Tripathi, Gopi Shankar Madurai, Meera Parida, Zainab Javid Patel and Kak Chingtabam Shyamcand Sharma.
Terming the constitution of the council historic, Laxmi said on Sunday that the council would work with States to ensure that transgender welfare boards are set up in all States and essential needs of the community, like housing, food, healthcare and education are met.
