. “CAPACITY ENHANCEMENT TRAINING” FOR YOUTH ON LOCAL SELF GOVERNANCE:

REAL CHANGE IN INDIA WILL COME WHEN WOMEN BEGIN TO AFFECT THE POLITICAL DELIBERATIONS OF THE NATION
.....BY GANDHIJI

Background
The 73rd Constitutional Amendment has given the Panchayati Raj system (institutions of local self-governance in rural areas) a new legitimacy, introduced reservations for weaker sections of society as well as 33% for women (50% from the 2010 elections) and given defined powers to all the three tiers of Panchayati Raj for development and local governance. Panchayat Raj (Rule of Village Committee) system is a three-tier system in the state with elected bodies at the Village, Taluk andDistrict levels. It ensures greater participation of people and more effective implementation of rural development programmes. There will be a Grama Panchayat for a village or group of villages, a Taluk level and the Zilla Panchayat at the district level.

All the three institutions will have elected representatives and there is no provision for nomination by the Government to any of these councils. Karnataka is the first in the country to enact new Panchayat Raj Act, Incorporating all provisions of 73rd Amendment to the Constitution.

Vision:
“To create knowledge based empowered community with an ability to manage Natural Resource endowments, Conflicts and to establish good governance at the lowest rung of democracy for Sustainable Development”.

Mission:
“To promote sustainable development and empowerment of communities through participatory approaches".

Objectives
The major objectives of VIMUKTI are to:

• Enhance the capacity of the elected representatives of Panchayati Raj.

• Provide information and sensitize them on various issues concerning Panchayati Raj and make them aware of their rights and responsibilities.

• Improve their skills to participate in the Gram Panchayat activities and develop their understanding of the elements of good governance.

• Develop positive attitude towards sustainable development.

• Develop qualities of responsible citizenship and effective leadership.

• Empower representatives of disadvantaged segments in villages of rural area.

• Motivate and encourage respect for the practice of human rights.

VIMUKTI organized nine days of Residential training program for the youth from 26th July to 4th August 2014 at Vimukti premises. Nearly 120 youth from our 14 villages participated and benefited from this training. Mr. lawerence The resource person highlighted in his sessions that In Panchayat Raj System the grama sabha has a key in bringing about transparency in the functioning of the gram panchayats, measuring equitable distribution of benefits in creating of community assists where these are needed and in bringing about social cohesion. It has been envisaged that grama sabhas shall plan and prioritize development works to be taken up in the village, approve annual plan for the gram panchayat seek active participation of women. Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes ,ensures transparency in the working of gram panchayat, exercise the right to check the accounts of the gram panchayat ,select beneficiaries under various schemes of the central/ state government undertaken for rural development ,and move towards full control over management of natural resources.

Every Panchayat Raj law gives a prominent legal position to the institution of the gram sabha, but in practice, this is only a formal obeisance. Often one is the utopian concept of people getting together to solve their problem does not work in the cold reality of local politics and power structure. We believe that if the concept does not work it signifies an essential failure of democracy and renders weak the entire edifice of decentralized democratic governance through Panchayat Raj system institution of gram sabha could work wonders as instruments of people’s empowerment in more ways that we may well imagine. The working group is convinced that all efforts towards effective democratic decentralization would be almost fertile without the gram sabha truly representative of the people, aspiration and their management skills. Empowering grama sabhas will surely dilute the discretionary powers of the gram panchayat members are reassert the character of villages as social units, regardless in whom the individuals vote. Accepting this as a major challenge the VIMUKTI is empowering these youth initial goal of reinforcing confidence in democratic processes at the grassroots level in rural belt of north Karnataka region. For this purpose the "Capacity Enhancement Programme" has been designed and conducted.