- The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment has enacted “The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights), Act, 2019.
- As per Chapter VII of the Act in the National Council for Transgender Persons, along with other members,
- five representatives of transgender community from the State/UTs by rotation and
- five experts to represent Non-Governmental Organizations or associations working for the welfare of transgender persons
- are to be nominated by the Central Government.
- The Council will assess the impact of various policies and they are free to decide on the modalities.
- Clause 18 of the Act, prescribes offences against transgender persons along with the penalties.
- Also, one of the functions of Council is redressal of their grievances.
- As per clause of 19 of the Act, the Central Government shall, from time to time, after due appropriation made by the Parliament by law in this behalf, credit such sums to the National Council as may be necessary for carrying out the purposes of this Act.
- A notification by the Ministry 1 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.
- 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.
