Role Performance of Women Leaders in Panchayati Raj Institutions

Abstract

The study was conducted to know the extent of participation of women leaders in the grassroots units of self-government, i.e. Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs). The sample consisted of 200 women leaders from Udham Singh Nagar, Dehradun and Tehri Garhwal districts of Uttarakhand state. Data were collected using a pre-tested semi-structured interview schedule. The study’s findings revealed that 59 per cent of respondents identified helping people in society as one of the reasons for contesting elections. The majority of the women leaders reported that they were taking advice only from the political parties and 65 per cent of them mentioned that the village development committee was working at the Gram Panchayat level. More than half of the respondents expressed that they sometimes attended the meetings at the block level, and approximately half of the respondents mentioned that they monthly organized meetings. The majority of the women leaders said that they always raised the issue of electricity in the meetings, followed by education, and more than half of the respondents reported that they discussed issues of examining annual plans during Gram Sabha meetings. The majority of the respondents said, they had visited the blocks, nearby banks, or cooperative societies to facilitate the Panchayat work. Nearly half of the women leaders had regular interaction with the police. After being elected as Panchayat leader, most of the respondents had established the linkages with banks for facilitating the Panchayat work, and eighty per cent got the support of male members always during Panchayat work. More than seventy per cent of the respondents sought advice from their husbands for facilitating Panchayat’s work. Nearly sixty per cent of women leaders individually contacted the people to complete the task. Almost all the respondents organized meetings. More than half of the respondents reported that they had constructed the road for easy approachability to the nearby towns during the last year, followed by 46 per cent carried out the sanitation work.