AWARENESS, PARTICIPATION AND POLITICAL EMPOWERMENT OF WOMEN IN PANCHAYAT RAJ INSTITUTIONS: A STUDY OF KAPURTHALA DISTRICT, PUNJAB

Povzetek

Abstract

The study investigates women political empowerment, awareness, and involvement among elected women representatives in Panchayat Raj Institutions (PRIs) of Kapurthala, Punjab. The 73rd Constitutional Amendment Act of 1992 established PRIs, which required reservations for women and greatly increased their political prominence and involvement in local government. Using a stratified random sample of 638 elected women representatives including Sarpanches, Panches, Panchayat Samiti members, and Zila Parishad members across five development blocks, the study used a descriptive design. A structured multilingual questionnaire was used to gather the data, ANOVA, and descriptive statistics were used for analysis. The results showed that whereas 33.5% of respondents showed low understanding of constitutional provisions, 35.7% of respondents exhibited moderate awareness. There were significant variations at the block and designation levels, with Sultanpur Lodhi exhibiting the greatest levels of empowerment and awareness and Dhilwan the lowest. Higher designations showed greater political participation and awareness than Panches, especially Sarpanches and Zila Parishad members. A significant percentage of women felt poor empowerment, despite those exhibiting strong participation, which reflected issues connected to ability, society, and structure. The study comes to the conclusion that in order to ensure inclusive governance, participatory democracy, and the efficient operation of PRIs in Punjab, it is imperative to develop grassroots women leaders through designation-specific capacity-building, ongoing training, and targeted awareness interventions.