Women Component Plan at the Village Panchayat Level in Kerala: Does it Live Up to its Promise?

Abstract

This article looks at the performance of the Women Component Plan (WCP) introduced at the local level in Kerala to encourage participatory planning by studying the experience of five village panchayats over a 10 year reference period. There has been a marked difference among projects carried out under the WCP and general sector projects and projects meant for Scheduled Castes in expenditure efficiency. The article also looks at the nature of projects implemented, the extent of participation of women members in their design and execution, and the opinion of elected representatives on the usefulness of the WCP.

Gender-Responsive Budgeting: The Case of a Rural Local Body in Kerala

“…Although the women's mandatory quota of 33% has been in existence since 1995, and has been raised to 50% from 2010 onward, the women representatives are yet to identify gender interests, not to speak of lobbying toward their attainment. Once elected, they transform themselves as spokespersons of both men and women of their constituencies rather than champions of women-only projects (Nair & Moolakkattu, 2014).…”

“…The budget, instead, is often an unrealistic and inflated exercise meant primarily for public and media consumption as well as meets a statutory requirement (Government of Kerala, 2015b). When the annual plan is finalized, the WCP comes in handy as a buffer to balance the sector ceilings in plan allocations set by the state government (Nair & Moolakkattu, 2014). Feminization of local governance in terms of enhancement of women's quota from 33% to 50% in all local government positions and the preeminent role played by the Kudumbasree women in Panchayat affairs have not resulted in the transformation of WCP to a GRB format.…”

“…Considerable difference between the rate of expenditure of WCP vis-à-vis general projects as well as those meant for Scheduled Castes (SCs) also was found, suggesting that WCP received the lowest priority. The WCP, in effect, ended up as a regular source for financing the Kudumbasree operations (Nair & Moolakkattu, 2014). Vijayan and George (2010) analyze the state's 2010 to 2011 budget based on a fourfold categorization.…”

Women in STEM in India: Understanding Challenges through Social Constructionist Perspective

“…They constitute about half of the total enrolments in Ph.D. in IT and computer science (CS), but in mechanical engineering (ME), they are less than 10% (AISHE, 2020, p. 16), exemplifying again the social approval for women in computer-related courses; while ME is viewed as masculine because of its association with working with machines in industry among male members/workers and the perception of a biased labour market. There is a strong link between the job prospects and subject choices of both women and men (Nair, 2012).…”

Participatory Democracy or ‘Transformative Appropriation’? The People’s Planning Campaign in Kerala

“…16 There is a very large literature that points to some degree of success in addressing women's practical needs, and the starkness of failure in raising their strategic interests. 17 Very recent research on development planning in Kerala's local bodies reveal a loss in planning freedom at the bottom and very heavy bureaucratisation. 18 Mandatory projects now take a very large share of the plan funds compared to earlier periods; meanwhile earlier problems, such as poor performance in the productive sector and overwhelming dominance of individualised welfare distribution seem to have become stable features.…”