1. To sensitize citizens and communities on issues pertaining to local governance and development through various awareness sessions by academicians, field experts, specialists and development practitioners under the theme #LocalGovernanceTalks
2. To conduct various online and offline advocacy campaigns
3. To develop policy guidelines, writing articles/books to disseminate to general public
We have conducted essay and drawing competitions for children on the following topics:"People's Participation in Village Panchayat" and "Role of Village In our nation's development". The best essays and drawings have been awarded cash prizes. And also we have captured the youth voices about the best practices in their panchayats and their perspectives for the empowerment of village panchayats.
The guest speaker of the event was Dr. K Gireesan, Associate Professor at RGNIYD where he spoke about the importance of enabling the local government at different parts of the country with the power and authority to function as "units of self government". Although with varying levels of initiative, drive, interest and capacity, these are essential characteristics of local government. In addition to extending support to the local governments in its functioning, youth can also become 'change agents' in the society. He also highlighted the initiatives and interventions made by the local government and other organizations in the selected area, aiming at youth development, based on these inputs a model for 'youth budgeting at the local level can be developed. Through this session one can understand that the approaches and strategies for enhancing youth participation in local governance will be significant towards realizing "good governance at the grassroots".
As part of Urban Local Government Day 2020, we have organized a panel discussion on Internal Migration in India. The distinguished panel members are I) S.Irudaya Rajan - Professor at the Center for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram, and Kerala. ii) Dr. P Sivakumar - Head, Centre for monitoring, Evaluation and Impact Assessment (CMEIA) & Faculty Department of Development Studies, RGNIYD. iii) Dr. Bernard D Sami - Senior Fellow, Loyola institute of Social Science Training & Research (LISSTAR), Tamil Nadu. All the panel members have done various researches on migration scenario in various parts of the country and some even have done impact evaluation of various programs for migrant people. The speakers have shared their views about the on-going issue of migration due to covid - 19 scenario. They majorly spoke about what the government could have done as a preventive measure instead of responding to the crisis. They also pointed out that some government schemes are not effectively utilized for the welfare of migrant laborers. The session ended with lot of suggestive measures that can be incorporated by government and other stakeholders to solve the issue. The session was moderated by Professor Inderjeet Singh Sodhi, Head, Department of Local Governance, and RGNIYD.
When we celebrate National Panchayati Raj Day to celebrate village panchayats in our country, there is no specific day has been allotted to celebrate urban local government institutions like Municipal corporations, Town Panchayats, etc for their developmental efforts. So, team IGG decided to celebrate the Urban Local Government day on June 1st (74th Constitution Amendment Act passed on that date). In this regard, IGG have conducted essay competition and meme competitions to make the youth and children aware of the Urban Local Government's issues and it importance along with an online panel discussion
The importance of women participation in local governments is crucial for the overall development. The speakers of the session were Dr. G Uma, Asst. Prof. School of Gender and Development studies, Delhi who possess tremendous experience working in the field with women leaders and Mrs. Sumathi Former President of Adigathur Village Panchayat, Thiruvallur Dist., who had done taken various developmental activities in her village. The session covered various aspects of problems and issues faced by women in the local governments. And also the former president shared her own experience of how irrespective of all the challenges she made her village a modern village through her constant efforts.
Prof. Venkatesh Atreya., Head, Department of Economics, Bharatiyar University, a former chairman of the All India People's Science Network (AIBSN), a member of the Election commission of the Tamil Nadu who was our guest speaker. The event discussed about the role of localities in post-Corona economic development. He iterated the importance of Local bodies to play a greater role in the devolution of power. But in the present context, the system is controlled by the centers of power and there is no proper power sharing is happening at the grassroots. He explained that the best example of this is the deliberate delay in holding local elections. However, he noted that local bodies would not be able to contribute much to India's economic growth if the current situation is prevailing in our state.
Dr. Balasubramaniam Ramani is an elected councilor and member of the city council for Hannover Central Constituency, Germany. He is also elected as a Chairman for Socialist Democratic Party in Hannover’s Central Constituency. In this session, he spoke about the functioning of decentralization in Germany and explained the process of how developmental proposals are being voted upon and implemented in a particular constituency. He also throws some light about the key members in the local government system and the importance of specialists in the political fulcrum of Germany.
The chief guest of the event was Dr Senthil Kumar, Member of Parliament from Dharmapuri Parliamentary Constituency. The event was moderated by Mr. Prabagaran, Training Lead at IGG. He started the session by talking about the importance of Member of the Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS) and later on he had answered questions from the moderator as well as the general audience. He is of opinion that village panchayat presidents have much more powers than MP/MLA. He is quite happy that the local government elections in Tamil Nadu had happened recently after five years of no election; otherwise, it is a problematic scenario for people in village panchayats without an elected leader and no proper Gram Sabha to address their developmental issues/needs. He made his ground observations that during the period without elected representatives, Panchayat Secretary and District administration take over the rights of the members of Gram Sabha. He also spoke about the importance of resolution passed by members of the Gram Sabha wherein which the resolution passed by a Village Panchayat which cannot even be challenged in the court of law, with an example cited from the recent resolution passed by some of the villages in his parliamentary constituency. He had also understood the importance of Gram Sabha and clarified audience’s doubts related to the functioning of Gram Sabha in their own villages. The webinar reflected the participation of MP in Parliament is equally important to his participation in Gram Sabha meetings for the participatory constituency development. IGG is looking forward to interacting with more such MP’s in future to sensitize the importance of Gram Sabha.
The session indicated the importance and the need of conducting Grama Sabha at the Village panchayats where how the participation of people can be meaningfully increased and channeled for the development. The guest speaker of the event was Mr. Nandhakumar, General secretary , Thannatchi who is also a specialist in Grama Sabha and attended various gram Sabha meetings across the villages in Tamil Nadu. Mr. Prabagaran, Training Lead at IGG moderated the event where more than 50 participants (village presidents, ward members, volunteers) were attended.
Mr. Alex Paul Menon – IAS is a Labor commissioner & Special Secretary, Food & Civil Supplies, Chhattisgarh shared his experience as an IAS officer in strengthening grassroots democracy. It was an interactive session and all the questions were asked by Gurusaravanan, M, Chairperson, IGG along with few questions from the audience. He spoke about one of his initiatives for the development of Padi Village panchayat and what are all the strategies he had been adopted for the empowerment of village panchayat.
On the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti, we have organized an interactive experience sharing session from a young village panchayat president who also spoke about the importance of youth participation in Local Government. Mr. A Raja MCA, Arangoor Village panchayat President, Cuddalore district is the guest speaker of the event. Mr. Kavi Kannan M, Training coordinator at IGG moderated the event. Mr Raja spoke about his own experience as youth how he contested in election and participated for the development of his own village panchayat. He also iterated various challenges he faced and how he tackled to solve the problems.
Miss. Tara Krishnaswamy, Co-founder-Citizens for Bangalore & Co-founder-Shakti Political Power to Women was our guest speaker of the event. The event majorly discussed about the problems faced by women panchayat presidents in their villages and how they can find solutions. The event discussed on-going problems like caste discrimination amongst Dalit Women, proxy presidents, etc and how these issues are acting as an obstacle to the development of the panchayat. The speaker suggested that for any issues/problems, there should be a series fo campaigns should be done in the field collectively by women. She also opined that the Tamil Nadu government should paid more attention for the formation of Mahila (Women) Council and Ward Council in every Grama Panchayat
The Nambikkai Panchayat series was organized basically to create awareness amongst people about the inspirational works carried out by the select village panchayat presidents amidst the challenges and also to share it with other panchayat presidents so that they can emulate the developmental activities in their own village panchayats. It is an interactive session wherein which the presidents share their experience ever since they occupy the position especially the new initiatives that are taken, success stories and implementation of various programs /schemes.
Session 01: Mr. RVS Sivarasu MBA., Pirathaparamapuram Village panchayat president was our guest speaker. He had taken great initiative in his village panchayat like promotion of Dairy farming, conducting tailoring classes for women & initiatives for youth development.
Session 02: Mr. D MuthuKumarasamy Bsc. BL., Melankuzhi Panchayat present, Ariyalur district was our guest speaker. He had initiated various initiatives that paved the way for a Smart village panchayat & also promoted green energy in his own panchayat.
Session 03: Mrs. Madeshwari Diploma Nursing, Sittlingi Village panchayat president, Dharmapuri district was our guest speaker. The Women panchayat president is very active in her panchayat wherein which she continuously executes the developmental works in a transparent & accountable manner notably the implementation of government schemes .
Due to the announcement of 2021 Tamil Nadu Assembly Elections, Team IGG had collaborated with like-minded organizations and released a Decentralization manifesto 2021. The rationale behind releasing this manifesto is to sensitize political parties to understand the issues/problems faced by the local governments in Tamil Nadu and incorporate those issues in their election manifesto. To prepare this manifesto, Representatives had chosen from each organization and multiple discussions were held to deliver a quality outcome. These representatives held discussions with field experts and academicians who were working on local governance as well as experts who were working on differently abled welfare, environmental conservation, Scheduled Castes/ Scheduled Tribes development and Youth Development. The released manifesto has been shared with major political parties in Tamil Nadu – DMK, ADMK, INC, VCK, BJP, MNM, AMMK & NTK and some of them have incorporated those issues in their election manifesto. In this way, the Decentralization Manifesto reflects people’s voices and aspirations for the empowerment of local governments.
