Women Quota Act 2023 to come into force

Government sources said the notification of the 2023 bill was because it was a “technical” requirement seeking further amendments to the constitutional provisions that it had already inserted/amended.Three bills are currently being debated in the Lok Sabha, including the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, 2026, which seeks to amend Articles 330A, 332A and 334A inserted through the Constitution (106th Amendment) Bill, 2023. The Constitutional Amendment Bill, 2023, which contemplates reservation for women will come into effect after the first delimitation based on the relevant census after the coming into force of the Act. However, the government believes that the next census (2027 Census) and the consequent delimitation will take considerable time and will delay women’s participation in politics, so it introduced the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill on Thursday to allow delimitation exercise to be carried out based on the population data of the latest published census (i.e. 2011 Census).