Women are the change agents in Koothattukulam grama panchayat here. Located at the intersection of Ernakulam, Idukki and Kottayam districts, the panchayat is demonstrating how women power, properly harnessed, can make a difference when it comes to local-level development initiatives.
What strikes one as one surveys the work being done by the panchayat is the presence of women in most of the development initiatives here. From curry powder and readymade garment making units to a women's collective engaged in ironing clothes and a full-fledged ‘Singarimelam' troupe, women play a very significant role in almost every project under implementation in the panchayat.
The focus may have to do with the fact that the panchayat is headed by a woman — L. Vasumathi Amma, a retired school headmistress. “The focus during the past five years of my tenure has been to improve the lot of women, ensure drinking water supply to all and build homes for the shelter-less,” she says.
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One of her main tasks as panchayat president, she says passionately, has been to empower women and sensitise members of the public (read men) and those working in government and other institutions to treat women with respect. “Initially, we found it really tough to bring women out of their homes,” she says.
The panchayat took its first tentative step in this direction by setting up a tender coconut vending outlet. The curry powder and readymade garment units followed. The icing on the cake came in the form of the 15-member Kudumbasree Singarimelam troupe, which now gets invitations from both within and outside the State.
The panchayat also brought eight acres of fallow land under a paddy and vegetable cultivation programme and implemented schemes worth Rs.2.50 crore to provide drinking water to 2,800 families by digging wells and building tanks. As these initiatives began to send out positive signals, the panchayat moved on to the setting up of vermi-compost and biogas plants to process refuse from the local market. A canal passing through the town was dredged and cleaned up under the Clean Kerala programme. Taken together, these initiatives won for the panchayat the Nirmal Gram Award in 2007.
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The panchayat black-topped 48 roads and built 22 new roads during the five years. A 20-bed old-age home for men and women and a homoeopathy dispensary are awaiting inauguration. A tour circuit linking locales of interest in the area is also awaiting administrative sanction.
Ms. Vasumathi Amma credits the panchayat's success in fully utilizing the development and Plan funds during the last fiscal to its innovative projects — most of them aimed at empowering women.