Not a good career option
As governments keep assigning functions to the panchayats, the pressure is showing in the performance of the elected representatives. "When I got elected as sarpanch, I thought I would do a lot for my village. Soon, I realised that there is little I can do. People's aspirations are very high, but the powers of a sarpanch are too meagre,' says N Swatilata Reddy, head of Narpala panchayat in Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh.
She was elected sarpanch three months ago in a panchayat with a population of 16,000. "My daily duties begin at 6:30 am, when I start receiving people, especially women, at my residence. They come with grievances like scarcity of drinking water and lack of sanitation; some need ration cards, others pensions. The panchayat office begins at 10.30 am,' she says.
She is also a member of the school education committee, the primary health centre advisory body, the village watershed committee, the anganwadi committee, the joint forest management body, and the gram sabha. All this is statutory works she must do. Tentatively she has to spend 200 days just attending meetings of various users groups under different schemes.
Then there are the fortnightly visits to mandal or zilla parishad offices. Reddy feels she spends most of a daytime negotiating with officials for additional funds or release of stopped funds.
Her monthly honourarium for all this is Rs 600. And then there is Srinivas, secretary to the Narpala panchayat. A full-time government employee, his monthly salary is Rs 14,000. Srinivas works for Reddy but as his salary comes directly from the state government, he has little to fear from her.