Exchange of views with the Sarpanches

Panchayati Raj is a system of governance in which gram panchayats are the basic units of administration. A Sarpanch is the head of a Panchayat. "Panchayat" literally means assembly (ayat) of five (panch) wise and respected elders chosen and accepted by the village community.

Mahatma Gandhi advocated Panchayati Raj, a decentralized form of Government where each village is responsible for its own affairs, as the foundation of India's political system.

SIDART with support of Hanns Seidel Foundation organizes seminars which focus on empowering majorly women representatives of Panchayats to improve quality of their working, life style and decision making. One such seminar was held on 06 March 2011 in Jaipur where Dr. Pramila Sanjaya and Dr. Sanjay Saxena along with other experts from SIDART encouraged Sarpanches and Village Volunteers from different villages to come on stage and share their views with others on how the knowledge gained on better village functioning from the previous SIDART workshops helps in their smooth functioning for e.g. villagers are now more aware about their rights for ration, villagers understood how to approach the concerned authorities and obtain birth certificate of their children, get their pensions cleared, get water tanks in schools repaired, get roads cleaned, etc.

This time the focus was on Health. Dr. Sanjay Saxena explained in depth about the powers and functions of Health Department. Health issues were discussed with the members of Panchayats so that they have a clear understanding of these issues and further help villagers in getting the optimum health benefits like promoting 100 percent vaccination for children, explained tool to access malnourishment in children, birth and pregnancy complications and how to deal with them, etc.

Such seminars help the Sarpanches and Village Volunteers to take right decisions and work for people in a better way with better knowledge and updated information imparted to them.