Building Skill and Capability Among Gram Panchayat Presidents an Experience from the Field

This book presents the efforts taken by Gandhigram Rural Institute to prepare the leaders of the grassroots institutions to perform their assigned roles and responsibilities by building up the capacity of the leaders. The training experiences of Gram Panchayat Presidents, both men and women, of eight districts in Tamil Nadu have been discussed. Pre-training and post-training evaluation has also been made in order to find out the impact of the training. Their feedback about the training programme is discussed as well. Further, achievements and the problems of the Gram Panchayat leaders have been assessed with a view to evolve a strategy to create a more conducive and positive climate for the Panchayat leaders to perform their roles and discharge their responsibilities effectively. An analysis of the achievements and barriers have been recorded through a workshop. The book will help the training institutions to design their training programmes.

About the Author :
Ganapathy Palanithurai. Professor in Rajiv Gandhi Chair, Gandhigram Rural Institute is an academic activist working with the people in rural areas for building the capacity of the leaders and people to reinvent sustainable grassroots democracy. He is heading the Department of Political Science and Development Administration, in Gandhigram Rural University, Tamil Nadu. His policy advocacy role at the governmental level is increasingly felt at present in all the three levels, namely, sub-regional, regional and national as he does more field work than theorization. He has been associating himself with State Planning Commission of Tamil Nadu. Population Foundation of India, Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, CAI'ART, Ministry of Rural Areas and Employment and DANIDA (Danish-lndo Development Agency) in specific areas of activities in connection with empowerment of people He is in the network of the Non-Governmental Organisations for Panchayat activities. He involves himself in capacity building exercise for local body leaders. He has evolved training module and manual for local body leaders. He has to his credit twenty-four books, seventy-five articles in reputed journals, ten working papers, seven monographs, seven review articles on three major areas, namely, Legislative Behaviour, Ethnicity and Panchayati Raj System. He was a recipient of Fellowship from Sastri Indo-Canadian Institute, New Delhi and World Academy of Art and Science. USA. He has visited the US and Canada, on academic assignments. He was a visiting fellow in the MiGill University, Canada in 1989. He is a life member of Indian Institute of Public Administration. Indian Association of Public Administration, Indian Association of Political Science, Indian Association of American Studies, and Indian Association of Canadian Studies, lie is a member of the expert committee constituted by the Government of Tamil Nadu, to monitor the training programme for local body leaders.