Kamla Beniwal

Kamla Beniwal (born 12 January 1927) is an Indian politician.

She was a senior member of Indian National Congress party.

She became the first woman minister in Rajasthan in 1954 at the age of 27.

She has been the first ever woman Governor of any northeastern state.

She was awarded Tamrapatra by former prime minister Indira Gandhi in recognition of her contribution in the freedom struggle.

After completing her education she joined Indian National Congress.

In 1954, at the age of 27, she won the Legislative Assembly election and became a minister in the Rajasthan state government.

Beniwal has been a minister in successive Congress governments in Rajasthan since 1954, holding various important portfolios including home, medical and health, education and agriculture.

She was the revenue minister in the Ashok Gehlot government.

Among the party posts she has held as the joint secretary of the Pradesh Congress Committee during 1977 elections, member of the Rajasthan Congress Executive Committee, President of the Rajasthan Mahila Congress, member of the Rajasthan Pradesh Election Committee, and then the Chairman of the Election Campaign Committee.

Beniwal was a minister in the State Government of Rajasthan for an extensive period of time, holding different cabinet posts.

As a minister, she has served the Rajasthan Government for nearly 50 years.

For a decade, from 1980 to 1990, she was a cabinet minister in the Rajasthan government.

During this time she held a sheer diversity of portfolios such as Agriculture, Animal husbandry, Irrigation, Labor and Employment, Education, Art and Culture, Tourism and Integrated Rural development.

In 1993 she was no longer a minister but still was elected to the Legislative Assembly from Bairath (now Viratnagar), Jaipur.

She received the Best Co-operator of India Award conferred by IFFCO in 1994 – 95.

The Lokayukta is a state-level body for monitoring the government, particularly for corruption.

She became a cabinet minister again in 1998, and was the Deputy Chief Minister of Rajasthan from 2003.

In her long career she has been closely associated with the functioning of the state Congress party and is a member of the All India Congress Committee.

She served as a minister on different posts and Deputy Chief Minister of Rajasthan in 2003.

Later she served as Governor of different Indian states between 2009 and 2014.

She was appointed Governor of Tripura in October 2009.

She was the first female governor of any state of Northeast India.

A month later, she was appointed the Governor of Gujarat on 27 November 2009 where she served for more than four years.

On 6 July 2014, she was transferred to the post of Governor of Mizoram.

Beniwal is one of the founder members of the Co-operative Movement and different important organisations in the state of Rajasthan.

She held the following positions in these organisations:

Other than being a quite senior member of the Indian National Congress, Beniwal is famous as a minister of good quality, honesty, and excellent performance.

She had managed all the operations of her departments with comprehensive learning and diligence.

She has lucid ideas about her task and was quite energetic to muster her officials to keep high standards of operation.

As Agriculture Minister of the state, she was a key functionary in the setting up of Rajasthan Agriculture University in Bikaner.

As an Irrigation Minister, she completed the fabulous task of making district programmes of approximately 48,000 water harvesting plants in Rajasthan.

As a result, a huge number of small, medium, and big projects are underway.

This is certainly good news for farmers who suffer from drought.

She had a key role in setting up the National Institute of Ayurved, at Jaipur.

With her firm endeavour, she has also set up a Sanskrit University at Jaipur.

Beniwal is one of the most committed and senior co-operators in India.

She has served as the representative of the Rajasthan unit in National Co-operative Union of India in different ranks for nearly 20 years.

As one of the limited and leading co-operators in India, Beniwal has been linked with the primary association of the All India Co-operative Union, Jorbagh, New Delhi, which is currently named as the National Co-operative Union of India (NCUI).

From the very start of Co-operative Union, Beniwal was dynamically involved in the campaign to turn it into a real spokesperson establishment of the countrywide co-operative campaign.