Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Friday announced that 35 per cent seats in police recruitment in the state, from the rank of constables to Deputy Superintendent of Police, will now be reserved for women.The state police is going to launch a massive recruitment drive with over 43,000 new vacancies to be filled up in the next five years.Every year, over 8,000 recruitments will take place in an effort to match the national average of 143 policemen for every one lakh people. Currently, Bihar has just 69 cops per one lakh people.Reservation for women, which was announced on the occasion of the state's 101st anniversary on Friday evening, has been extended to cooperatives and primary agriculture cooperative societies where women will now be given 50 per cent reservation. Bihar has 8,463 primary agricultural credit societies and 521 trade bodies.

Inaugurating a three-day programme, the chief minister said an amendment bill for this would be brought in the state legislature within the budget session.A few years ago, Mr Kumar had also reserved 50 per cent seats in three tier panchayat for women.