The Maharashtra Election Commission has launched an ambitious project using a special training module to prepare women members of village panchayats in the state for their challenging job.
A pilot run of the project, announced by State Election Commissioner Neela Satyanarayan, was recently conducted in Wardha district in association with Symbiosis Institute of Business Management (SIBM), which has designed the course for rural women entrusted with panchayat affairs.
The programme envisages personality development of elected women representatives through a string of innovative methods to suit their literacy level assessed through various means, including brain mapping. Certain games and activities are also to be employed in this process.Expressing satisfaction at positive response from participants, a project coordinator told PTI that the module also imparts information about law and budgetary provisions that a woman village-head and councillor is expected to have.
The module for training of women village-head also focuses on issues such as faith, social restrictions, local problems and the ways to tackle them to ensure an efficient panchayat administration.
"We have certain ice breaking activity keeping in mind the literacy level and lifestyle of the rural women aspiring to manage panchayat affairs. The module is so designed that there is a lot of mobility and movement in entire session," the coordinator said.
The designed module also has specific sessions devoted to provisions of the Panchayati Raj Act, its usage, rules and financial systems of village panchayats, he said, adding around 300 participants have been trained at Wardha session.
Another project coordinator said an emphasis is placed on woman representative first becoming "good and responsible" family member so that the trait is extended to a wider sphere with whole village looking up to her for direction.
The module will help elected representatives realise that they are not just figureheads in a male dominated environment.
There are over 9000 women village-heads in Maharashtra who would be beneficiaries of the special training module to be implemented in the entire state in phases.