AP government has approved the Transgender Policy

The State government has approved the Transgender Policy on Saturday, facilitating introduction of welfare schemes for the transgenders in tune with the Supreme Court’s direction that the Central and State governments treat transgenders as socially and economically backward classes.

The court also envisaged medical care to the transgenders in hospitals and provision of separate public toilets and other facilities.

Accordingly, the Department of Welfare of Differently Abled and Senior Citizens of A.P. has come up with the said policy, wherein pension and other financial and non-financial benefits will be provided to the transgenders whose number in the undivided A.P. stood at 43,769 as per Census 2011.

As per the policy, the name of the Department for Welfare of Differently Abled and Senior Citizens will be renamed as Department for Welfare of Differently Abled, Transgender and Senior Citizens, and a pension of ?1,500 will be paid per head to the transgenders aged above 18 on submission of medical certificate. The Medical and Health Department will evolve a procedure for issuing medical certificate/ID card to enable the transgenders to avail permissible benefits given by government departments such as ration card, house site, and Aadhaar card.

Besides, the transgenders can avail subsidy-linked bank loans for self-employment and educational scholarship in SC/ST/BC/minority/differently - abled and senior citizens / Brahmin and Kapu corporations, among a host of other benefits, for which action will be taken by all the administrative departments of the Secretariat and Heads of Departments.