Ministry of Women & Child Development is implementing a project on “Capacity Building Programme for Elected Women Representatives (EWRs) of Panchayati Raj”.  The project is being implemented by National Institute of Public Cooperation and Child Development (NIPCCD), an autonomous body functioning under the aegis of the Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India.

The training of EWRs is being done through a two tier training programme. In the first phase, an intensive training program for EWRs of Panchayati Raj Institutions and Resource persons/Master Trainers was organized on 27^th November, 2017. The training in second phase is being imparted through these Master trainers. As of now, 424 Master trainers have been able to impart training to 18,578 EWRs from 406 districts of 14 States/UTs. This programme would go a long way in realizing the Prime Minister’s vision of moving the country from “women development to women-led development”.

The Minister of Women & Child Development, Smt Maneka Sanjay Gandhi started this project realizing the fact that role of EWRs remained ineffective, despite their large presence in the directly elected local governance. It is working on developing EWRs as “change agents”, while improving their leadership qualities and management skills for better implementation of various programmes of the Government. General trainings being organized in the country for Elected Representatives do not focus on the gender component in details and also fall short on the needs of these women representatives to address the specific challenges faced by them at the grassroots level. There are more than 14 lakh EWRs across the country.

Ministry of Women & Child Development has also developed training modules regarding laws for protection of women and children, development schemes and programmes (State and Center), Information Communication Technology (ICT) for the EWRs, participatory planning and asset creation, monitoring of Public Works and leadership qualities. This targeted approach to build capacities of these grassroots leaders has been envisaged to yield more desired development outcomes. It will help to empower the women members and heads of panchayats so that they can govern the villages more effectively.

AKR/NG/SKK