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IJAPSA-2016 All Rights Reserved PARTICIP PDF
IJAPSA-2016 All Rights Reserved PARTICIP PDF
IJAPSA-2016 All Rights Reserved PARTICIP PDF
Abstract
India lives in villages and unless village life is revitalized the nation as a whole can hardly make
any progress. Thus, there is a need to involve people in the decision making processes at grassroot
level. The 73rd Constitutional Amendment provides a unique opportunity to promote local self
governance in rural areas through establishment of Gram Sabha under article 243 A. The Gram
Sabha is a constitutional body of all adult members of a village. Gram Sabha has the power and
responsive to make gram panchayat transparent and directly accountable to the people. It is
introduced to have decentralized planning and evaluation with people's participation from the
bottom line. But the studies and previous literatures show that many Gram Sabhas are not
functioning as expected. Many reasons behind it but major identified reasons are unavailability
of information and ignorance about the power and functioning of Gram Sabha. Thus there is a
prime need to improve the working of Gram Sabhas to bring the gains of democracy and to spread
the economic prosperity evenly across the country.
Self – Help Group (SHG) can play an important role in strengthening grassroots democracy by
framing and implementing the policies and programmes catering to the needs of women by their
active participation in meetings and discussions at various hierarchy level of Panchayati Raj.
Women SHG members can work as community leaders which represent the problems of
thousands and millions of rural women who are otherwise kept aside by the policy planners at the
top level. They can ensure the holding of Gram Sabha meeting and directly increase the
participation in the meeting by motivating and creating awareness among villagers, especially,
women. By the initiatives of SHGs on developmental issues Gram Sabha will be strengthen
approaching social as well as economic and cultural development. Thus the interface between the
Gram Sabha and SHGs need to be activated for ensuring good governance.
I. Introduction
“Power resides in the people; they can use it at any time.”
Mahatma Gandhi
"Democracy means power springing from the people.”
Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru
The basic unit of true democracy is the village. The Indian village system is all comprehensive,
fundamental and important. The ‘Gram Swaraj’ dream of Mahatma Gandhi and the ‘Power to the
People’ is the essence of true democracy.
Gram Sabha is the soul of Panchayats and a tool for transparency, disclosure of information
and social audit, a means for better and convergent delivery of services to citizens, improving
internal management and efficiency of Panchayats, capacity building of representatives and officials
of Panchayats, and a medium of e-procurement.
For the rural local governance to be effective, energizing GSs is the real challenge. There is
need to evolve mechanisms for regular and meaningful meeting of the GS, active participation of its
members and monitoring of its functioning. In energizing SHGs can work as functional body with
clarity in respect of timelines, resource inflows and objectives of the capacity building of Gram
Sabha.
Gram Sabhas are the nuclei around which decentralized planning is built. It is an institutional
mechanism of participatory democracy. It provides an opportunity to all the people to participate in
the development process. The institution of Gram Sabha has been in vogue in most states in India for
long. With the passing of the 73rd amendment to the constitution, the body has become an integral
part of Panchayat Raj, the third stratum of Government. The foundation of Panchayati Raj was laid
on 2nd October, 1959 and the completion of fifty years of its inception, the year 2009 -10 was
celebrated as ‘The Year of the Gram Sabha’.
'Gram Sabha' means a body consisting of persons registered in the electoral rolls relating to a
village comprised within the area of Panchayat at the village level. This was a model for democracy
at the grass roots based on direct participation by the people. Democracy has been defined as, 'a
Government where everybody has a say'. A democratic administration by a Panchayat cannot be a
good substitute for it. The extension of the process of democracy to the people in the real sense,
should mean that the Panchayat function as the executive body to give concrete shape to the wishes
and aspirations of the village community as represented by the Gram sabha. Gram Sabha provides an
institutional basis to popular participation. It provides a base for the three- tier structure of the
Panchayati Raj Institutions.
Gram Sabha provide an ideal forum for people to meet and discuss their local developmental
problems, the causes for the problems and possible solutions. It is easier to know the felt needs and
aspirations of the people in the meetings of the Gram Sabha. It ensures the accountability of the
elected representatives at the village level and acts as a watchdog on the working of the Gram
Panchayat. This has been used as a vehicle for bringing about greater people’s participation in
planning the developmental activities of the panchayat.
Gram Sabha is a basic tier to popularize development programmes. The Gram Sabha
establishes an active dialogue between the village people and their elected leaders at the village
Panchayat level regarding development programmes to be undertaken.
Good practices that provide people’s assemblies below the GS such as Ward Sabha, Mahila
Sabha and Bal Sabha should be promoted through SHGs. SHGS may act as supporting body of GS
who can monitor and discuss attendance of government functionaries, functioning of schools,
dispensaries, anganwadi centres, ration shops and other local institutions. SHGs can discuss reports
of the Standing Committees of the GP in association with GS. SHGs can also go through the list of
beneficiaries under schemes such as Indira Awaas Yojana (IAY), Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY)
and National Old Age Pension Scheme. If SHGS keeps a close vigil on implementation and leakages,
inefficiencies can be virtually eliminated.
In order to increase the quality of life, it is essential that people should participate in other areas
of service delivery like agriculture and allied sectors, education, health, drinking water, sanitation
and artisan sectors. In disturbed areas with special problems like trafficking of women and children,
forced indentured labour, starvation and other distress conditions and chronic natural disasters, in all
these aspects SSGs should have special roles in parallel to Gram Sabha. Transparency and
accountability in the functioning of Panchayats is very important for enhancing credibility and it may
be improved through active participation of SHGs in GS.
A. Functions of Gram Sabha
The functions of Gram Sabha vary from state to state and there is no synchronization among the
states in implementing the function devolved. Following functions are common for most of the
states:
I. Administrative and Budgeting
1) To examine annual statements of accounts, audit report, audit note and to seek clarification from
the Panchayat.
2) To discuss report on the administration of the preceding year.
Bengal where Gram Sabha is not active in the desired way and not playing a sufficiently active role
in programme planning and implementation (Ramit Basu, 2010). Meetings were conducted without
any consideration of quorum and these meeting hardly meet the required quorum in most of the
Gram Panchayats (Nayakara Veeresha, 2010). The absence of women and weaker sections of rural
society is another feature of the Gram Sabha (Anupam Hazare, 2013). The agenda items are often
limited to works taken up by the Panchayats and therefore many people have no interest to
participate in the meeting. Decisions which are supposed to be taken by the Gram Sabha are taken
by the local elite, thereby rendering this body redundant. Hence, this body could not deliver the
expected results.
C.2 Some reasons for their uninspiring performance are:
1. Lack of awareness among the Gramsabha members often contributes to limited presence and
participation. This is more so for the marginalized section of any community who are in a worse
position than others.
2. Subject covered in gram sabha are not based on felt needs of the villagers.
3. Very few Gram Panchayats places Action taken reports of previous meeting in the Gram Sabha.
4. Poor attendance of village level Officers & staff in Gram Sabha.
5. Lack of knowledge and skill about the development schemes among officials.
6. Constant changes in Nodal Officers, which leads to discontinuity.
7. The meeting notice does not contain Agenda notes to be discussed.
8. Lack of sufficient publicity among the members to attend Gram sabha.
9. Lack of Interest amongst members to attend Gram Sabha.
10. Dominance of ruling party cadres in the Gram Sabha proceedings.
11. Lack of co-operation from the departments outside the administrative jurisdiction of Zilla
Panchayat like Revenue dept. etc. Even though, these departments are implementing majority of
individual beneficiary schemes, they neither attend the Gram Sabhas nor they are accountable to
the people.
12. People show interest in many service oriented departments like State Electricity Boards. They
like to raise the issues of deficiency in services rendered by these departments. But these
departments do not attend the Gramsabha.
13. Effective running of Gram Sabha needs strong political will. Hence the importance of Gram
Sabha is dwindling.
14. Lack of transparency in recording the minutes of Gram Sabha‘s, has led to loss of faith of the
people in the system of Gram Sabha.
15. Lack of educational level also hinder the involvement of people in Gram Sabha .
16. Non-harmonisation among Gram Sabha members
17. Excessive control by bureaucracy
18. Reluctance to use fiscal powers to levy tax, use of pasture land etc.
19. Lack of awareness amongst the elected representatives and villagers
20. Lack of clear understanding amongst the people about the importance and the functions of Gram
Sabha.
21. Day and time of organization of meeting is not suitable to all as that clashes with their duty
hours.
22. Household responsibility of women reduces their participation.
23. Women cannot speak in presence of large number of elder members.
24. Dominance by a group of people by virtue of their position, economic status, and political
support.
25. Many people, especially the relatively well off, have the feeling that Gram Sabha is the
institution of socially and economically backward people. This may be also the reason for poor
participation of the reasonably well off sections in Gram Sabha meetings.
26. The apathy of the Government officials towards the larger village population and the tendency
of adopting short cuts by limiting visit’s to the Gram Panchayats also contribute towards such
situation.
In Country like India with so much of diversity and unevenness, any mandate is not so easy to put
into practice. Non-participation of the rural people has hobbled the development of the Gram Sabha,
denying the true benefits of this institution to the people. Thus there is a need to activate gram sabha
for positive and qualitative development.
The agenda of observed Gram Sabha meetings were Preparation of Annual Plan for MNREGA
(39.71%) social audit (29.41%), Food security act (7.84%), Anganwadi Poshahar and filling vacant
post (6.37%), Community participation in school enrollment campaign (5.39%), Women
empowerment (3.43%), Gram Sabha for C.M. Awas and Pension Scheme (0.49%), Indira Awaas for
BPL families(0.49%), Gram Sabha for making Ration card (0.98%), Gram sabha for forest act
(0.49%) and Pasture land (0.49%). Although all the Gram Sabha meetings were agenda based but
their main emphasis was on physical development of village. Social, health and educational issues
got very less space in these meeting. This also caused the poor attendance in the meeting. Some
infrastructure issue of the village such as transport, pipeline for the drinking water facility etc. also
did not get much consideration in the meetings. Gram sabha is the grassroots institution where there
is a space for the identification and articulation of the needs and concerns of the people which
generally did not take care there. The agenda to be discussed in the gram sabha meetings come from
the top administration which undermines the spirit of democracy.
There is a dire need to activate this body to have direct participation of people in democracy.
Many institutions have been working in activating this body. Looking to the importance of self
empowerment and running trend of Self Help Groups (SHG) may be one of the best solutions to this
problem.
Note: a.) Follow up by SHGs of their raised issues in Next Gram Sabhas
b.) Identification of potential leader from SHGs for PRI
The Gram Sabhaabha can only be empowered by ensuring active participation of each and every
section of the community, especially the lager participation of Scheduled Caste
aste (SC), Scheduled
tribes (ST) and women. SHGs can enhance community involvement in Gram sabha by
following ways:
1. Creating Awareness: SHGs can create aawareness
wareness among villagers especially, women about the
role, function and importance of Gram Sabha as well as rights and responsibilities of the Gram
Sabha members. So that villagers can use their constitutional rights to develop themselves and
their community by taking active part in Gram Sabhas.
2. Development and use of audio-visual
audio aids: Audio-visual
visual aids can play an important role in
creating awareness about Gram Sabha. SHGs can develop various audio-visual visual materials like
films, posters and charts and paste at important places of the villages and distributed among
Gram Sabha members to generate awareness about Gram Sabha. These materials can also be
used for giving information about the Gram Sabha meeting like date, time, agenda, venue etc etc.
SHG may screen of successful Gram Sabha case studies such as Hivre Bazar Village
Panchayat, Maharashtra and Kuthumbakkam Village Panchayat,
Panchayat, Tamil Nadu in every village
panchayat.
3. Publicizing Gram Sabha Meeting
Meeting: SHGs can publicize
ublicize the Gram Sabha meeting to ensure
greater participation of villagers. They can paste posters at important places of villages and
distribute pamphlets at schools and anganwaris to communicate the Gram Sabha meeting
International Journal of Applied and Pure Science and Agriculture (IJAPSA)
Volume 02, Issue 04, [April - 2016] e-ISSN: 2394-5532, p-ISSN: 2394-823X
schedule to the parents through the children. They can also put notice of date, time, place and
purpose of Gram Sabha meeting at public places to increase participation of villagers in Gram
Sabha. They can spread information among villagers about the meetings
4. Home Visit: SHG member can contact personally to villagers to give the information about the
gram meeting and motivate them to attend meeting and take active part in that.
5. Discuss social, Health and educational issues in the meeting: It was observed that Gram
Sabhas meeting generally focused on physical development of villages. Social issues get very
less spaces in such meetings. Women of SHGs can put emphasis on such developmental issues
i.e. health, nutrition, education etc. in these meetings by placing proposals on these aspects and
also ensure the implementation of those proposals.
6. Enhancing Harmonization among Gram Sabha members: Caste and party politics play
major role in lack of coordination among Gram Sabha members. The influential people, elected
representatives and government officials (Panchayat Secretary etc. and higher officers) make
better use of the infighting for their greed and self interests. So, villagers should be oriented and
motivated to practice better coordination among themselves for the development of their village.
SHGs can make it possible by contacting and convincing people for better coordination.
7. Effective delivery of policies and programmes: Government has been made many
programmes and policies to uplift the rural masses. In order to optimally utilize the advantages it
is essential to reach these initiatives to actual beneficiaries i. e. rural people by making it
assessable. Beneficiaries of most of the Government programmes are identified through gram
sabha meeting but this is not done in reality. Hence, SHG can enable panchayats for effective
delivery of policies and programmes, which presently are managed within silos.
8. Enhancing participation of women and weaker sections: It has been noticed that the elected
women representatives only become a signatory and all the work is being done by the male
members of the family. In most of the cases women representatives are not even aware about the
activities and the work being taken in the village. Similarly participation of women was very poor
in the Gram Sabha meetings. The women from the high castes and the dominant peasant castes
did not attend these because of the Parda System. The women from the backward classes and
scheduled castes did not report owing to the same constraints which prevented the male members
of their families from participating in the Gram Sabha meetings. Self Help Groups can ensure and
enhance participation of women in these meetings. Their office bearers can approach the women
in general and those from the backward classes and scheduled castes in particular to participate in
the meetings of Gram Sabha for ensuring that they are able to take advantage of the programmes
and schemes for their empowerment. They can particularly ensure the presence of the women
members of the SHGs and other women from their families. This can make some difference.
9. SHGs can stimulate bottom up planning and empowers local bodies with periodic
replenishment: SHGs can make people aware about the importance of planning, budgeting and
auditing of all the development works to be carried out at the village level that will enhance their
involvement in planning. This will create a sense of responsibility for both Panchayat as well as
Gram Sabha. Strengthening people’s participation in the Gram Sabha is a critical prerequisite for
making Panchayats accountable to the people.
can contact sarpanch, secretary or even at Panchayati samiti and Zilla parishad to hold the
meeting which generally held on papers only. They can also try to convince the Sarpanches that
the holding of these meetings would strengthen their position and enhance their popular support.
They also ensure the minutes of meetings display in the Gram Panchayat along with the
signatories, i.e. members of the Gram Sabha. A copy each should be sent to the Panchayat
Samiti and Zila Parishad. Regular organization of Gram Sabha meetings motivate villagers to
participate in it.
2. Organising of Ward Sabha Meetings: Ward Sabha meeting should be organized before Gram
Sabha meeting to effectively bring the grassroots level issues at the Gram Sabha. Ward-wise
Sabhas would enable more voters to participate in the deliberations. They Ward members can
decide upon the priorities of issues. As the area and population of a Ward Sabha is smaller and
commonality of interest greater, people would discuss with close involvement and evolve a
consensus on matters that they wish to be taken up by the Ward Member to the Gram Panchayat.
SHG members contact ward panch and insist him/her to organize ward sabha before the Gram
Sabha meeting, so that villagers can finalize some proposals which they can put in gram sabha
meeting.
1) Ensuring correct attendance of villagers in Gram Sabha meeting: It is observed that the
Sarpanch, Secretary and other officials make up fake attendance to show the quorum. SHG
members can keep watch and get the real presence recorded and displayed with the minutes by
name and in numbers to avoid any misrepresentation
2) Proper recording of Minutes: Office bearers of SHGs can monitor and ensure that the minutes
of Gram Sabha meeting are recording properly and displaying on the notice board of the Gram
Panchayat office so that each and every villager knows about the decisions.
3) Proper selection of beneficiaries for various schemes: Beneficiaries of various schemes
should be identified and approved only in the Gram Sabha meetings. Where ever possible,
disbursement under various schemes should be made in the Gram Sabha, so that benefits would
go to right persons only. This, in turn, would help increase the participation of people in Gram
Sabha. SHG women can somehow make it possible. SHGs can works in bridging the critical
gaps in development that are not met through the existing schemes and resources.
4) Ensuring say of women: Women generally hesitate to speak in gathering especially in front of
elder male members. If any woman has courage to say something in public but powerful person
stop them to speak. SHG can help women to raise their voice in such meeting and also ensure
that authority must listen them and take action accordingly.
5) Raising issues related to women: Women issues are generally not a part of the Gram Sabha
meeting. Although Government has been made many initiatives in this direction like
organsiation of special Gram Sabha meetings to discuss issues related nutrition, health,
sanitation, drinking water, prevention of violence against women & children, prevention of
dowry, female foeticide etc. but still the women issues are not inherent part of gram sabha
meetings. Women SHGs can raise women related issue in these meeting and also force the
authority to take action on the raised issues.
D.5 OTHERS
1. Follow up by SHGs of their raised issues in Next Gram Sabhas: The members of SHGs
should do follow-up of their proposal that put up in the last meeting. They also ensure that action
taken report of last meeting must read in Gram Sabha.
2. Identification of potential leader from SHGs for PRI: NGOs working with SHGs and Women
of SHGs should identify the potential leader from their groups and motivate them to fight in
election for ward panch and Sarpanch. Workshops should organize for enhancing their
leadership qualities.
II. CONCLUSION
Gram Sabha is a key to the self-governance. Active participation of its members and
monitoring its functioning will make the meaningful meeting of the Gram Sabha. The Gram
Sabha would not become an effective agency for decision-making, unless the women members,
who represent about 50 percent of the total population, took active part in it. Self – Help Group
(SHG) can play an important role in strengthening grassroots democracy by enhancing active
participation of people in the meetings and discussions. Office bearers and members of SHGs
become community leaders who represent the problems of rural women whose needs seldom find
a space in the policies and programmes at the state and national levels. Therefore, the interface
between the PRIs and SHGs needs to be activated for ensuring good governance through the
Gram Sabha.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
[1] Anupam Hazare (2013), Empowering Rural Voices of India, Kurukshetra, May 2013 61:7:3-5.
[2] Nambiar (2001), Making the Gram Sabha Work, Economic and Political Weekly, 36(33), August 18-24, 2001, pp.
3114-3117.
[3] Nayakara Veeresha (2010), Functioning of Gram Sabha in Tamilnadu: A study in selected village panchayats in
Sreperumbudur block, Kancheepuram District Proceedings of the National Seminar on GRAMA SABHA Abdul
Nazir Sab State Institute of Rural Development, Mysore, Karnataka, pp 27-50.
[4] Ramesh Kumar Singh (2013), People’s Participation in Gram Sabha of Bihar, Kurukshetra, May 2013 61:7: 26-30.
[5] Ramit Basu (2010) The Role of the Gram Sabha in the process of Planning – An analytical approach Proceedings of
the National Seminar on GRAMA SABHA Abdul Nazir Sab State Institute of Rural Development, Mysore,
Karnataka, pp 1-22.
[6] Sinha R., Singh A. and Bajpai P. (2002), Women’s Particiaption in Panchayati Raj for improving Health Status:
A case For Uttar Pradesh, Special Issue, Vol. 48.