Tirupati: Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla will inaugurate a two-day national conference of the Committee on Empowerment of Women Parliament and State and Union Territory Legislatures scheduled here from September 14(Today). Andhra Pradesh Governor S Abdul Nazeer, Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu and several others will attend the conference. "Lok Sabha Speaker will chair the inaugural and concluding sessions (of the conference)," said Andhra Pradesh Legislature Secretary General Prasanna Kumar Suryadevara in an official release. Following the deliberations, the two-day conference will culminate with a declaration on September 15.

According to Suryadevara, women's empowerment committee is a joint committee in Parliament, comprising 20 Lok Sabha members and 10 Rajya Sabha members.

He said generally a Lok Sabha member will chair this committee and Rajahmundry MP D Purandeswari is the current chairperson. Committees of this kind are existing in several state Legislative Assemblies and Councils. Andhra Pradesh has a joint committee with three members from the Legislative Council and nine from the Legislative Assembly, which is chaired by G Charita Reddy, he added. Suryadevara said respective state committees used to function within their purviews and used to visit other states to learn how they operate, and, when given an opportunity, they would deliberate in the visiting state's committees to increase awareness. The Lok Sabha Speaker has taken the initiative of convening all the committees from across the country in a particular state to deliberate on a particular subject, he said. Under this initiative, this first meeting was held in Maharashtra on Estimate Committee two months ago, followed by an SC, ST Committee meeting in Bhubaneswar in August and the National Conference of the Committee on Empowerment of Women Parliament and State and Union Territory Legislatures is the third meeting in this series scheduled in Andhra Pradesh.

The event brings together women parliamentarians, legislators and social activists working in the domain of women’s empowerment on a single platform. A brainchild of the Lok Sabha Speaker, the event is set to usher in reforms in the field of gender justice, said Andhra Pradesh Legislative Secretary-General S. Prasanna Kumar.

Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Harivansh Singh, Andhra Pradesh Governor S Abdul Nazeer, Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, A.P. Legislative Speaker Ch. Ayyanna Patrudu, Deputy Speaker K. Raghu Ramakrishna Raju, Lok Sabha women’s committee chairperson Daggubati Purandeshwari, State panel chairperson Gouru Charitha Reddy will participate in the event.

Suryadevara said Birla will deliver the inaugural address, followed by preliminary sessions which will take up two to three themes to discuss in depth. As it is not viable for all the members of the committees from across the states to attend, he said the Lok Sabha Speaker called for the nomination of a four-member committee from each state.