Around 56.34 per cent of village panchayat presidents elected in 27 districts across Tamil Nadu are women, according to a report by the Tiruppur-based Institute of Grassroots Governance (IGG), an organisation working to strengthen grassroots democracy.

The report stated that 5,421 of the 9,622 village panchayat presidents elected in the 27 districts are women, with 1,817 aged between 21 and 35, reported The Hindu.

The report titled ‘Analysis on Demographic status of Elected Village Panchayat Presidents in Tamil Nadu 2020’, compares the gender representation among the elected panchayat presidents out of the 91,920 elected representatives of the rural local bodies in these districts. Along with this, it also analyses the representation of different age groups.

The village looks at 27 districts as the rural local body elections for the reconstituted districts of Kancheepuram, Chengalpattu, Vellore, Tirupattur, Ranipet, Villupuram, Kallakuruchi, Tirunelveli and Tenkasi are yet to be held.

The report stated that with around 56.34 per cent of the panchayat presidents being women, the representation of women has increased by around 17 per cent (excluding the nine districts) compared to around 38.99 per cent in the 2011 local bodies election. Only 4,884 out of 12,524 village panchayat presidents in 2011 were women.

While the representation of women is high, only 166 out of the 5,421 women panchayat presidents are under the age of 29 and holding a degree, KG Inbarasan, general secretary and research wing coordinator of the IGG, told the media.

‘We are trying to identify their needs and conduct training programmes for them,’ he said.

Meanwhile, in terms of youth representation, of the 9,622 panchayat presidents, 1,817 are under the age group of 21-35. Of these youth panchayat presidents, while 1,440 were women, 377 were men.

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