HP to held special mahila gram panchayat sabha

Shimla, Sept 7 (UNI) A special mahila gram sabha will be held here on September 23 to discuss problems of women representatives and their developmental requirements.

Addressing the state level convention of zila parishad, panchayat samiti and gram panchayat representatives here, Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh today said the panchayat was being organised to educate and equip the women panchayat representatives with necessary tools to enable them to discharge their duties effectively and independently in public interest. "The very issue of women empowerment is defeated if their husbands interfere with their functioning," Mr Singh said.

The government would provide additional grants to those gram panchayat that were clean and with high female birth rate and rain water harvesting structures, he said.

He said his government had decided to award those panchayats with additional developmental grants of Rs five lakh for highest female birth ratio, Rs 101 crore to 22 panchayats under Total Sanitation Programme, Nirmal Puraskar reward to best panchayat at state, district and block levels besides a Total Developmental Award grant of Rs one crore.

The award money would be over and above the regular grants being provided for various development, poverty alleviation and social welfare activities, he said.

He said the scheme would inspire the gram panchayats to compete for winning the award money.

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