Women Leaders in Village Panchayats

Five years back, some local villagers kidnapped my daughter and slaughtered her

near one temple (Balidan) as a sign of sacrifice to the almighty. I tried to get help

from other people from the village to get the criminals punished, but nobody came

forward to help me. When the police refused to do their job too, I filed a case in the

court. The case is still in court and I hope to get justice someday.

I am 40 years old, mother to a son and I belong to the Vysya community. Usually

the women in our community are not allowed to be a part of politics. I married a

businessperson in the Palyakere village, but we are not that well off economically

and hence have a low standard of living. Being a member of the SHg, the members

selected me to contest the gram Panchayat election. There was just one other

woman candidate, who was also supported by the SHg members. I was however

elected. Since then, I have been trying to solve the village problems, like improper

sanitation, unhygienic condition of drainage system etc. Most of the girls were out

of school (dropouts), due to a lack of awareness. I motivated and convinced the

people and got more than 20 children readmitted to school. There is a continuity-

learning centre in the village, but it was not functioning well earlier, I ensured that

the centre operated regularly and now both men and women attend literacy classes

there, I also try to motivate women to attend them.

With the help of an NRI who belongs to the Vysya community, stationary material

like notebooks, pens, pencils, geometry boxes were distributed to students from classes

1 to 10 in the year 2006-07. Arya Vysya Mandali launched a similar programme,

but in this case, we prefer to give the material to female students, to encourage them

to attend school regularly. Steel plates were distributed to school students to eat food

under the Mid-Day Meal Scheme and water filters were provided in every school to

supply pure drinking water to schoolchildren, using the Panchayat funds.

The students, especially girls were provided some amount to fund their further

studies. I arranged the Chinnara Angala Programme in village schools to encourage

those students who were weak in studies by making things simpler for them.

I tried to create awareness among the illiterate women, about social issues such as

domestic violence, by involving the educated ones. I conducted a Health Education

Lakshmi
Ward Member
Panchayat: Palyakere
Block: Bagepalli
District: Chikkaballapur