West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee talks with Manobi Bandopadhyay in Kolkata. (Press Trust of India)
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today said gender rights had been on her agenda ever since she took charge.
Speaking at 'Shiksha Ratna' award ceremony ahead of Teachers Day celebrations, she said that she started thinking about gender sensitisation and gender rights ever since she took charge and received complaints in this regard.
"Now we have all the provisions and even a development board for them," Ms Banerjee said.
India's first transgender college principal Manabi Bandopadhyay, who was also present on the occasion, hoped that more people from the third gender would get equal opportunities in society.
The chief minister asked everyone to pay due respect to teachers, her comment coming at a time when violence in campuses of school and colleges across the state became a recurring phenomenon.
After awarding hundred teachers from across the state and 42 schools, she also announced that from next year university teachers would also be felicitated and a new award 'Siksha Bhushan' would be introduced.
During the function, the chief minister also launched 'Muktir Alo', a rehabilitation scheme for sex workers and women rescued from human trafficking.
Listing her government's achievements in the education sector, Ms Banerjee said 14 new universities and 45 new colleges have been set up in Bengal in the last four years.
The chief minister said the government had also achieved success in building toilets in schools.
"Now we will use the scheme of 100 days work to make schools clean and green," she said.
The state is becoming an educational hub, she said, adding, 67 model schools have been set up and several schools upgraded in the last four years.
"We will distribute cycles to 40 lakh students from classes 9-12. We will expand it to class 8 in future," she said and claimed that the 'Kanyashree' scheme has benefited 37 lakh girls.
"Till 2011 there were only 1300 medical seats in Bengal. We added 1400 new seats in four years," she said and added that the coverage of mid-day meals in the state is 100 per cent.