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| Makwana Jayaben Jithendrabhai (4th from left) , Sarpanch, Virdi with other members |
At the Gram Panchayat office in Virdi, a
small village in the Dholka taluka, a woman in blue sari sits at the only
desk in the office. A row of chairs along the same line as the desk are
occupied by seven other women of varying age groups. This is the all-women
Gram Panchayat of Virdi and Makwana Jayaben Jithendrabhai, the 35-year-old
Sarpanch, is the youngest of them all. The Gram Panchayat in Virdi is one of
many Samras Grams in Gujarat. Initiated in October 2001, under the Samras Gram
Yojana, a village is provided Rs. 2 lakh cash incentive, when all its residents
decide to elect all the members of its Gram Panchayat unanimously.
Virdi, however receives Rs. 3 lakh as
incentive, as along with being a Samras Gram, all its members are women. So,
Virdi qualifies as a Mahila Samras Gram, and therefore gets an additional one
lakh rupees under the scheme.
Elections in Virdi, prior to Jayaben’s term were not
always conducted based on mutual consent. From every ward (The smallest unit in
a Gram Panchayat comprising 100 odd people), two or three candidates contested
for the elections, leading up to a highly competitive atmosphere in the
village. As the margin of victory was very small, contestants would go up to
any extent to win. Though during elections, no violence was ever reported in
Virdi, however incidents of violence in some other villages (which had too many
candidates contesting for the elections) were not an unlikely occurrence. The
violence and competitive atmosphere in villages during elections proved to be a
hindrance for development initiatives in the village.
The Gujarat Government, in order to reduce violence and propagate unity among villagers, decided to give cash incentives to Gram Panchayats that fielded just one candidate from each ward as well as for the position of the Sarpanch.
Abdul
Bhai, the former Sarpanch of Virdi, said, “Meetings were held at every ward,
where we made sure that all the ward members agreed on one candidate. In case
there was more than one candidate for a ward then through discussions the right
candidate among them was chosen. We realised that the conflict during previous
elections caused problems only to the voters. It was only by standing united
could we achieve prosperity for all”
The Government in order to ensure
continuity of the Yojana, gives 25 per cent extra grant to second and third
time Samras Grams. Second time Samras Grams can also avail funds for
cement-concrete roads. While third time Samras Grams receive additional grant
for solar lighting.
The
scheme has been well received all over Gujarat. From 2001 (start of the yojana) till December 2012,
around 10,400 Gram Panchayats have been declared Samras, out of which 291 are
Mahila Samras Grams.
(The article is based on the article "Good Governance: Empowering Gujarat's Villages" published in the April 2013 issue of 'The Gujarat' quarterly. For more such stories, visit http://gujaratinformation.net/showpage.aspx?contentid=31 )
