The Hindu : Karnataka / Mysore News : Workshop to empower women representatives prepare budget

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Feb 17, 2005

Karnataka

Karnataka - Mysore

Workshop to empower women representatives prepare budget

By Our Staff Correspondent

MYSORE, FEB. 16. A workshop on "Building budgets from below" to empower women corporators to play an active role in the budget preparations was organised here today by the Singamma Sreenivasan Foundation in association with the Mysore City Corporation.

Supported by the European Union and UNIFEM, the workshop seeks to engage elected women representatives in the preparation of budget of local bodies. The workshop is part of a project being implemented in three phases and was conducted to identify issues, prioritise them and seek solutions with the local self-government. The programmes will enable elected women representatives to reflect the critical issues and solutions identified by the communities during the 2005-06 budget.

The Mayor, Dakshinamurthy, said the Stree Shakti groups could be involved in the budget preparations.

There are 850 such groups in the city that have been organised well for over five years. Of the 14-lakh population, 6.7 lakh are women and the involvement of Stree Shakti groups would augur well for the development of the city.

The Mayor announced that the budget of the Mysore City Corporation will be placed before the council before March 30. It will be approximately Rs. 168 crores.

He said the budget will give priority to cleaning, drinking water supply, streetlights and roads.

The project implemented by the Singamma Sreenivasan Foundation seeks to link economic governance with political governance while examining and analysing the budgets of the State and local governments, two municipalities and two gram panchayats which have the responsibilities for implementing fiscal policies, and help elected women to participate in the budget preparation.

It is an experiment to enable women to direct fiscal policy. The project envisages removing poverty by evolving a method, which will enable poor women to overcome it.

Besides the Mysore City Corporation, the project is being implemented by Honaganahalli Gram Panchayat in Bijapur district; Kogali Gram Panchayat in Bellary district; Udupi City Municipal Council; and Tumkur City Municipal Council.

In Mysore, the project is being implemented in wards 35 and 4. The Associate Director of the foundation, Ahalya S. Bhat; the Programme Officer of UNIFEM, Benitha Sharma; the Deputy Mayor, Manjula; and the Leader of the Opposition in the corporation council, Shivakumar; were present.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Karnataka

News Update

Stories in this Section

Govt. to attract Rs. 1,000 cr. investment in tourism sector

CBI probe sought into assets of ex-chairmen of MUDA

Workshop to empower women representatives prepare budget

40 teachers attend workshop

Seminar on tourism from March 3

Complicated surgery performed