Panchayat Raj Institutions as an Instrument for Women Empowerment-A Case Study

Abstract

The concept of empowerment of women is of recent origin."The word empowerment" has been given currency by UN agencies during recent years. It is increasing of self that the constitutional goal of gender equality cannot be ensured as long as women are not empowered with modern education ,employment, and ability to assert their self respect, independence and autonomy to make choices, and opportunities a participate in development activities of the nation In recent years there have been explicit moves to increase women's political participation.The 73 rd and 74 th constitutional Amendments in Indian constitution have created space for women in political participation and decision making at the grass root level by providing that 1/3 of the seats in local bodies all over the country be reserved for them with this representation of women in rural local bodies has bocome an area to be explored largly.Women representation in local bodies is an important criterion for assessing their role in politics. Employment in general and self-employment in particular is intimately connected with women's empowerment. It was attempted to know what measures the Panchayat Raj Institutions had taken to implement employment schemes, especially Swaranjayanti Gram Swaranrozgar Yojana.