The Indian Express                  08.03.2013

Training for women in local bodies catches UN eye

An initiative to train elected women representatives of local self
government bodies from Pune and other districts of the state to function
effectively and with more confidence has found appreciation from
international quarters.

One of the workshops organised as part of the Krantijyoti Yojana
of the the state election commission was attended by Anne F. Stenhammer,
Regional Programme Director UN Women, (South Asia). She was impressed
and immediately expressed interest in initiating a dialogue with the
government.

“The UN is interested in the project,” said state election commissioner Neela Satyanarayan.

Many workshops were already conducted with the support of the
rural development department. A workshop in in February was the one that
the UN representative attended and a letter to the state election
commission expressing interest in supporting, monitoring and tracking
the unit to assess the process, followed. “In their letter on February
19, the UN appreciated the Krantijyoti initiative of the state election
commissioner and invited further dialogue,” said another official of
the state election commission.

The training being imparted to elected women representatives is
an effort to empower women in local self government bodies so that they
remove their “rubber stamp” tag. The training module was designed for
76,585 women from the total 2.29 lakh representatives in local self
government bodies in the state. With a budget outlay of Rs 2.75 crore, a
three-tier plan to train women representatives was rolled out through
Kranti Jyoti. According to Satyanarayan, she wanted the women to be not
just empowered by the position they have got, but also arm them with
knowledge to carry out their duties effectively.

Until now, 10 districts including Pune have participated in the
project. The other districts were Kolhapur, Wardha, Sindhudurg, Satara,
Solapur, Nashik, Nanded, Amravati and Thane. A pilot run in Wardha and
Thane formed the basis of the programme while there was a training
session in Pune as well. While the target is to train 24,203 women
representatives, according to the state election department, 7,942 women
have been trained in the 10 districts.

Initially, about 70 women were groomed as core trainers. The
training stresses capacity building, self confidence, leadership skills,
administrative efficiency and participation in governance, besides
gender equality. The aim is to make the training simple, interesting
and effective.

Panchayat members state that women tend to shy away from handling
the functioning of gram panchayats and skip even important budget
allocation meetings, leaving most of the work to their husbands.

“This training has helped us take on the work with full
responsibility,” says panchayat samiti member Vaishali Nagude who
attended the training.