Patna, Sep 19 : After BJP government introduced the women reservation bill in the parliament, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar welcomed the bill. 'We welcome the introduction of the Women's Reservation Bill in the Parliament. We have been advocating and taking initiatives to ensure women's empowerment for a long time and have taken many historic steps in Bihar,' the Chief Minister posted on X. 'We gave 50 per cent reservation to women in Panchayati Raj Institutions in the year 2006. From 2007 we introduced 50 per cent reservation for women in Urban Local Bodies also. Since 2006, women are being given 50 per cent reservation in primary teacher recruitment and from 2016 provision has been made for 35 per cent reservation for women in all government jobs.' He said that we share this with pride and extreme satisfaction that on Tuesday the participation of women police personnel in Bihar is the highest in the country. He said that 33 per cent seats are reserved for girl students in the institutions under medical, engineering and sports universities, which is a first in India. He said that in bid to empower women, the Bihar government started a project named JEEVIKA to organise women into Self Help Groups. 'The then Central government started the Aajeevika programme on similar lines. As of now, 10.47 lakh Self Help Groups have been formed, having over 1.3 crore women as JEEVIKA Didis,' he said. 'I am of the firm opinion that within the ambit of women's reservation in the Parliament, reservation should also be extended to the women from backward and extremely backward classes,' he said. He said that as per the bill, a census has to be carried out and subsequently the delimitation of the electoral constituencies shall be done. 'It is only after these steps that the provision of the proposed Bill would be implemented. The census should have been completed on time. In fact, the Census should have been completed by 2021. However, it is still pending,' the Chief Minister said. 'We are of the view that caste census should also be carried out along with the census. Had the caste census been done earlier, the reservation for women belonging to backward and extremely backward classes could have been implemented immediately. It is only then that women would be benefited in true sense,' he said. /IANS