Women to have a say in the planning of rural roads
Soon women will have a say in the planning of rural roads in their villages. The Government has made a move to modify the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojna (PMGSY) guidelines to make it more women-friendly. Women Self Help Groups and women members in Panchayati Raj Institutions will be involved in the process for drafting detailed project reports (DPRs) of the rural roads.
Under the existing rules, in the name of the community involvement, only those women who are patwari or local pradhan can participate in the DPR preparation process in the proposed rural roads under the PMGSY, which was launched in 2000 aiming to provide all-weather road connectivity in rural areas of the country. There is an enabling provision in the programme guidelines of PMGSY to involve community in planning of road works by the State Governments.
The move follows realisation that women can no longer be kept out of the planning of the roads because they are the ones who are affected due to the road constructions.
Though the Ministry has already made up its mind to make the guidelines more women-friendly, it has sought comments and suggestions from the States to keep them on the board, said a senior RD official.The States have been asked to respond within next three weeks.
Every time a new road is planned, a ‘transect walk’ is held along the suggested alignment by programme implementing units (PIU) with the communities, Panchyati Raj Institutions (PRI) and revenue officials to observe, to listen, and to ask questions to enable identification of problems and collectively evolve solutions related to the issues such as land acquisition.
“Presently, it’s the Panchayat pradhan, local patwari and the Junior Engineer who are entitled to participate in the non-formal ‘transect walk’ organised by the assistant engineer at the time of preparation of DPRs of the rural road. Mostly the role of the women is almost absent in such process.”
In fact, forest department officials are invited to be part of the ‘walk’ in case of forest land is involved, the official said.
“The participation of community was done after it was observed that road works were sometimes held up because at the time of preparation of the DPRs either actual availability of land was not investigated or because local Panchayats were not taken into confidence about the proposed alignment and disputes subsequently arose,” the official added.