Recasting Citizenship for Development - File UPI

SHGs as Change Agents in Enhancing the Political Participation 331
because of a teacher’s poor performance, and enrolling them in a newly
opened private school. They raised this issue in the gram sabha and demanded
that the current teacher be replaced with a better one, and called
for an overall improvement in the school’s functioning.
Claiming Entitlements: SHGs in Sehore Block have also raised issues
related to widows’ pensions and employment under government schemes.
In one of the meetings of the gram sabha, women SHG members raised
the issue of getting employment under the Pradhan Mantri Gramin Sadak
Yojana. The sarpanch took this up at the district level. The women from
the groups were then employed in road construction.
Raising Issues for Development: The SHGs in Naugaon have helped
to get a school sanctioned for the village. They have taken up issues of
land and forest rights with the panchayat. Nearly half the SHGs in Ghazipur
and Faizabad districts in Uttar Pradesh have raised issues in the panchayats
regarding old-age pension, the drainage system, problems of water, health,
income-generation, and the villagers’ right to information. SHGs in Ghazipur
and Faizabad districts have also discussed with government representatives
the possibility of arriving at local solutions for local problems. Various
health, employment and other socio-economic issues have been discussed
(for example, the Pulse Polio programme, the SGSY scheme, and problems
related to marriages, housing and development programmes for women
and children). They also called for stepping up initiatives for road construction,
helping to select the right beneficiaries, monetary help to poor
families to marry off their daughters, and public monitoring of the social
development projects at the village level.
Interfacing with Representatives of Political Institutions
Putting Pressure on the Sarpanch: In Sehore, Madhya Pradesh, the
panchayat was laying a pipeline under a particular scheme. One colony
had been completely overlooked, even though the pipeline was passing
through this area. The women of the Gyan Ganga group raised the concerns
before the sarpanch, who eventually had to succumb to their demands.
The women of Nai Roshni group raised their voices against the absence
of the sarpanch from gram sabha meetings. Their group facilitator informed
them of the particular Act that has provisions related to the recall
of the sarpanch. When the women threatened to use the recall provision