Help Desk (during elections)

PRAGATI believes that the political participation of women is essential for a balanced development. In tune with this belief during the during-election phase PRAGATI set-up Help Desks to facilitate prospective women candidates. This intervention has helped in increasing self-esteem and self-confidence of the prospective women candidate who aspire to contest and win Panchayat elections. These help-desks focused on the intricate nature of the election process and also brought about an understanding of Governance in context to the developmental in their respective villages.

Open Forum

Open Forum is an annual Ritual is organised for 800 Elected Women Functionaries with represenation from other states also. It is a Macro-level intervention aimed at creating a pressure-lobby to influence legislation and public policy in sustaining women’s struggle towards effective decentralization of powers and strengthen the Institution of Local Governance. The Open Forums have been instrumental in bringing major policy review and changes at the Regional and the National level.

Exposure Visits

PRAGATI takes a group of twenty members of elected women representatives for exposure visit to see best self governance practices in other states. The purpose of the visit is to gain insight into effective working of PRIs and to act as Pressure Group in bringing about changes in Panchayats in Uttarakhand for advocacy and lobbying to have our own Panchayat Raj Act and respectively devolution of powers as stated in 73rd & 74th Amendments.

Exposure visits

  • Mysore, Karnataka
  • Forest Department, Haryana
  • Jaipur, Rajasthan
  • Simour district, Himachal Pradesh
  • Uttarakhand
  • Uttar Pradesh

Impact of Karnataka Exposure Visit

Exposure visit of EWRs to Karnataka was to see the effective working of the Panchayat system in the State. Following have been the positive impacts and replication of best practices which EWRs have initiated in their villages.

  • >Radha Devi, Gram Pradhan Methiberi- After visiting Karnataka she was highly impressed by their system of records keeping which was present in the office at each Gram Panchayat. She also applied this system in her Gram Panchayat. She has also started maintaining records in her Gram Panchayat to bring transparency in her Panchayat.
  • Anita Nirala, Gram Pradhan kalsi- During her visit when she saw the good sanitation facility in the villages of Karnataka she also implemented the same in her village and made 75% toilets in her village. She was also inspired by working of MGNREGA at Karnataka so she actively got 100 % registration of Job card of people above 18 years in her village. Apart from this she also made it a compulsion for the ward members to attend the Gram Panchayat meeting.
  • Phool Jahan, Gram Pradhan Vikas Nagar– The most remarkable thing that she found at the Karnataka visit was the excellent working at the Anganwadi. She was amazed to see the condition of the mid day meal. After seeing this she also started monitoring the anganwadi at her Gram Panchayat. She also gave example of the anganwadi that got national award to the teachers.
  • Rekha, Gram Pradhan Lakhwaad- After seeing the tax system in Karnataka she has started putting tax on water and on the ground of gram Panchayat for all the local events of the village.