Woman presidents or vice-presidents of 13 grama panchayats in Dindigul district of Tamil Nadu recently visited Idukki district to study women empowerment programmes and grass-roots development initiatives launched by the grama panchayats of Kattappana and Peuvanthanam.
The visit was part of an interactive programme launched by the Dhan Foundation, a non-governmental organisation that works for adopting rural development models for emulation in other local bodies.
The visit was on Thursday.
Kattappana grama panchayat president Johny Kulampilly and secretary P.V. Biju explained to the representatives various initiatives of the panchayat and the filing of the records of the activities of the panchayat. The panchayat had recently received the ISO certification as a best service provider.
The team members also sought details of welfare schemes taken up by the panchayat and their beneficiaries. “Some of the schemes are suited for adoption in my grama panchayat, but would have to be made more pragmatic taking into account local characteristics,” S. Rajeswari, a team member, said.
She said such interactive programmes would benefit them as they would get to study how programmes meant for women uplift were successfully implemented here so that change could be brought about in their villages too.
S. Nagalakshmi, another member, said the grama panchayat she represented was economically backward and mostly agrarian. The programmes needed there could be different, but how these benefited the people was a lesson for her.
D. Ganesan, programme coordinator, said such interactions would help adopt certain projects that had a local impact in poverty alleviation and women empowerment for universal adoption. The local bodies now enjoyed more power and resources, and some projects needed to be redefined and adopted from other local bodies for successful implementation.
