Fewer than one in five employees of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) are women, according to gender profile data published by the agency. The disclosure comes as the central government is yet to resume its census of employees, the last of which was conducted in 2011.
As of September, CBDT reported a total workforce of just over 51,400. Of these, around 11,700 hold executive roles and 39,700 are in non-executive posts. Among executives, a little over 2,600 — or 22.6 per cent — are women. In non-executive positions, roughly 6,300 are women, amounting to only 16 per cent. In all, about 9,000 of CBDT’s staff are women, just 17.5 per cent of its total strength.
There is currently no legal requirement for the central government, regulators or autonomous bodies to reserve jobs for women or publish gender data. Some agencies, however, have chosen to do so. The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), for example, disclosed in its annual report that as of March 31, 2025, it employed 1,105 staff, comprising 787 men and 318 women. Meanwhile, the latest Annual Public Enterprises Survey shows that women made up 9.5 per cent of the workforce at central public sector enterprises in 2023–24, with 77,625 women employed.
The question of greater female representation in the government workforce has been repeatedly raised in parliament. On December 8, 2023, the government was asked whether it would consider introducing 30 per cent reservation for women in all government departments, offices and public sector undertakings. Women and Child Development Minister Smriti Irani replied that under Article 16(4) of the Constitution, reservation has been provided for Scheduled Castes (15 per cent), Scheduled Tribes (7.5 per cent) and Other Backward Classes (27 per cent).
She added that, in line with the Supreme Court’s judgment in the Indira Sawhney case, total reservations cannot exceed 50 per cent, making a separate quota for women unlikely. However, the government has mandated 33 per cent horizontal reservation for women across categories in direct recruitment of non-gazetted posts from constable to sub-inspector in the police forces of all Union Territories, as well as in the Central Armed Police Forces.
The lack of comprehensive workforce data remains a gap. The government had conducted a Census of the Central Government Employees since 1960 to track employment profiles. The last census, in 2011, reported 3.37 lakh women employees — 10.9 per cent of the total central government workforce at the time.
