Empower elected women to weed out ‘sarpanch patis’: Panel

NEW DELHI: A parliamentary panel has in its report called for focus on empowering women elected representatives (ERs) in panchayati raj institutions (PRIs) through training and capacity building to curb prevalent concepts like ‘Sarpanch Pati’ or ‘Pradhan Pati’ (husbands trying to act as proxy for elected women sarpanches).
The 31-member parliamentary standing committee on rural development and panchayati raj, chaired by Lok Sabha MP Kanimozhi Karunanidhi, is of the view that though there is provision for reservation of women in PRIs, for real empowerment of women representatives at panchayat level there is need to strengthen and financially empower women to facilitate them in taking independent decisions.
“To curb prevalent concepts like sarpanch/pradhan pati (husband of woman Sarpanch) in Panchayati Raj Institutions, the committee strongly recommend that the ministry should take concerted efforts for increasing capacity building and training of women representatives of PRIs so that they can function independently without influence and help of others,” the report said.
To enable this, the committee has recommended that a fixed percentage of participation must be reserved for women ERs in all capacity building programmes. The committee in the report on demands for grants for 2023-24 for the ministry of panchayati raj tabled in Parliament in the budget session in its observations and recommendations called for focus on women’s training under the Rastriya Gram Swaraj Abhiyan. In this regard, the ministry said that as on January 21, over 15. 1 lakh ERs, panchayat functionaries and other stakeholders had been trained for the financial year 2022-23. The ministry of panchayati raj, during the course of evidence submitted that “starting from this year, there is a special thrust on institutionalising Mahila Sabhas and Bal Sabhas”.
The recently released government report, ‘Women and Men in India 2022’ shows, as per data from the panchayati raj ministry, that as of last year, of the over 31. 8 lakh elected representatives, nearly 46% (over 14. 5 lakh) were women.