"I hope sincerely that it (women's bill) will be considered by the Lok Sabha at the earliest," she said in her address to a joint sitting of the two Houses of Parliament.

"The government also proposed to introduce a bill to protect children from sexual offences," she said, adding that the Protection of Women against Sexual Harassment at Workplace Bill has also been introduced in Parliament.

For the aged and the needy, the President said an old-age pension scheme for workers in the unorganised sector - Swavalamban - has been launched by the government. Expressing hope that all parties across the political spectrum would support the need for electoral reforms, she said a national conference on electoral reforms would be held in April this year in a bid to evolve a consensus on an acceptable agenda of reforms.

Noting that the government gave high priority to improve the delivery of justice and reduce delays in disposal of cases, Patil said the details of the National Mission for Delivery of Justice and Legal Reforms would be finalised soon.

"This should result in re-engineering of procedures, improving of human resources in this sector and leveraging of information technology," she said, adding that the Judicial Standards and Accountability Bill, already introduced in Parliament, was aimed at enhancing accountability of the judiciary.