Three decades after India reserved a third of panchayat seats for women, many of them are still unable to govern. The Panchayati Raj Ministry has asserted to Parliament that “proxy representation”, where male relatives of elected women pradhans effectively run their offices, remains a real problem in local self-government, despite years of reservation and training programs aimed at solving the problem.
The revelation was made in a written reply submitted to the House on Tuesday, in response to a question asked by BJP MP Smita Uday Wagh on capacity building of women elected representatives. Minister Rajiv Ranjan Singh, popularly known as Lalan Singh, said an advisory committee under the direction of the Supreme Court, constituted in September 2023, studied the issue and submitted its report in February 2025, which was accepted by the ministry.
“The advisory committee recommended that state governments take necessary measures, including legal safeguards, capacity building, social audits and penal provisions, to eliminate proxy leadership in panchayati raj institutions and ensure genuine empowerment, independence and accountability of women elected representatives,” the ministry said. The task force established on April 17, 2025 is now developing an implementation roadmap for countries to act on these recommendations.
However, the response did not reveal any numbers on how widespread the practice is: no statewide data, no survey numbers, and nothing specifying its scope.
The panchayat is a state subject, but the Center funds the training through the revamped Rashtriya Gram Swaraj Abhiyan (RGSA), which has been running since 2022-23. Figures in the written response show that 3,414,342 women elected representatives were trained under the program nationwide between 2022 and 23-10 July 2026. A more recent specialized leadership unit, the Sashakta Panchayat Netri Abhiyan, was launched in March 2025 and has trained 153,616 women so far. The ministry’s response lists the launch date as March 11, 2025, although previous press releases from the same ministry had listed the launch as a national workshop in Delhi on March 4, 2025, before International Women’s Day.
Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra account for the largest numbers of women trained under the RGSA over a five-year period, at about 390,000, 200,000 and 485,000 respectively. However, the amount of training provides no real indication of whether women translate this training into independent decision-making once they return to their positions, the very gap that the advisory committee was created to study.
The ministry’s SDG localization framework includes ‘Theme 9: Women-Friendly Panchayats’, which aims to push panchayats to commit to gender-focused development planning. In Maharashtra, the number of panchayats taking up the theme rose from 255 in 2023-24 to 1,364 in 2024-25, then came down to 1,557 in 2025-26 and just 222 so far this year. In Jalgaon district specifically, adoption has remained marginal throughout: 2 in 2023-2024, 62 in 2024-2025, 47 in 2025-2026, and none recorded so far in 2026-2027.
Nationally, 744 panchayats, about one per district, have been selected as ‘women-friendly model panchayats’, including 34 in Maharashtra and just one in Jalgaon.
The Gram Panchayat Act in Maharashtra stipulates four gram sabhas a year, each preceded by a Mahila Sabha, or women’s council, a provision the state has informed the Center is being followed. But the ministry’s response also confirmed that there is no panchayat leadership and governance resource center for women representatives anywhere in Maharashtra, including Jalgaon, despite a specific request.
In Jalgaon, only 248 women elected representatives have been trained under the specialized leadership unit so far, compared to 10,966 across the state.
Together, the numbers point to a familiar pattern that researchers and activists have pointed out for years: reservation drives women to the ballot and into office, but structural power within families and panchayats often remains in the hands of men. The GAC and Task Force report indicates that it recognizes this gap; The test will now be whether countries turn these recommendations into enforceable safeguards.
