For Panchayati Raj ministry official,
charity begins at home

The joint secretary in this nodal ministry selected an NGO run by her family as a launch partner for an important women’s empowerment programme—and the invitees who attended were top brass

By Shahid Faridi

A proletarian row is brewing about the fact of a senior bureaucrat in the Union ministry of panchayati raj getting the ministry to launch a new initiative from a society that is run by her family.
This nodal ministry, set up on May 27, 2004, had decided to launch this year a new programme called the Panchayat Mahila Shakti Abhiyan to ensure the greater empowerment of elected women’s representatives in panchayati raj institutions.

What are the odds that it is a coincidence that in a country where thousands of non-government organisations (NGOs) functioning seamlessly, a society—the Vidya Bhawan Society—run by the family of Aditi Mehta, joint secretary in the ministry of panchayati raj, under whose direct supervision the programme was launched, could be selected as a launch partner by her ministry itself? Without appropriate intervention, close to zilch.

The programme was launched with a state-level conference of elected women’s representatives in panchayats in Rajasthan on April 23-24 this year. This programme was held at the Vidya Bhawan Society premises in Udaipur. To organise the programme, Rs 9.9 lakh was paid to Vidya Bhawan Society. Of this, Rs 5.89 lakh was released by the Union panchayati raj ministry about a week before the conference, a sort of pro rata payment.

Another non-government organisation, Seva Mandir, run by Aditi Mehta’s family, was given the work of providing the delegates’ kit at the conference.

Although state chief minister Vasundhara Raje pointedly stayed away, the conference was attended by many prominent personalities. While Union panchayati raj minister Mani Shankar Aiyar and Rajasthan panchayati raj minister Kalulal Gurjar inaugurated the conference, National Women’s Commission chairperson Girija Vyas and member of the National Advisory Council Aruna Roy addressed various sessions at the conference.

The venue overflowed with delegates, who got to scarf food on the house. However, a head count by officials of the Union panchayati raj ministry revealed that not many of those who attended the meet were actually elected representatives—there was a horde of volunteers from the NGO of Mehta’s family.

Given all this, that the conference was hardly one of the best organised by his ministry was revealed by Mani Shankar Aiyar while he was addressing his ministry’s consultative committee meeting. He told the members of the consultative committee on May 15 that “most of the ladies invited for the (Panchayat Mahila Shakti Abhiyan) programme did not reach. Only a few from Udaipur division attended, though the hall was full.” You can read between the lines.

There is no doubt that the Vidya Bhawan Society and Seva Mandir have been doing a commendable job in spreading literacy and empowering the poor in Rajasthan.

Realpolitik, however, could not contact Aditi Mehta for her comments as her office informed this correspondent that she was away on a foreign tour.

What we do know is that during the run-up to the conference, Aditi Mehta freely used her position as a joint secretary and her links with the Vidya Bhawan Society to mobilise people for the meet. She sent out invites for the conference on Vidya Bhawan Society stationery, but signed as joint secretary, panchayati raj ministry, Government of India. In effect, it appeared that the Vidya Bhawan Society was a wing of the Government of India, when it is actually nothing of the sort—only an enterprise undertaken by one of its officials.