The Chief Minister’s fancy for of mahila sammelans in the districts has cost the state exchequer almost Rs 5 crore. Twelve district collectorates spent nearly Rs 4.21 crore in organising the sammelans, which does not include any concrete programme or even freebies for women voter whom Modi has tried to woo with a slew of schemes.
The cost only entailed putting up the tents, their transportation, food packets and publicity material.
The waste of public fund was revealed after two Vadodara-based women activists Trupti Shah and Deepali Ghelani filed an RTI application, asking details of spending on mahila sammelans.
Interestingly, the money to each of the district was allocated by the Gujarat Women’s Economic Development Corporation (GWEDC) that has an annual budget of barely a couple of crores, which it spends on training programmes and giving soft loans to women.
This made the activists file an RTI application on July 18 seeking financial details about the meets from the state secretary, which in turn directed all the district collectorates to furnish the details.
So far 12 districts have responded to the application, detailing their spending. There are interesting details, like Dahod district authorities spend Rs 11.12 lakh on faraskhana, Rs 3.24 for food packets and Rs 4.25 lakh in transportation costs. On an average, Rs 20 lakh were allotted to each of the district, with quite a few overshooting the budget.
GWEDC was appointed the fund distribution agency, with the money coming from the state women and child development department.
Incidentally GWEDC has a budget outlay of just couple of crores, which it spends in training programmes and providing soft loans to women. Shah said they had no response from bigger districts like Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Mehsana and Rajkot and only 12 of the 26 districts had responded so far to their RTI application.
Facing criticism on the increasing crime rate against women, female foeticide as well as the infamous rape and murder case of a minor girl that angered the Koli Samaj, Modi embarked on mahila sammelans under the women empowerment programme.
The programme has the CM elaborating on various measures taken by the state government and honouring women from different fields.
But women activists Shah and Ghelani believe the meetings have hardly done any good.
“The money could have been spent judiciously, like in appointment of officers in each district as the Domestic Violence Act entails,” said Shah.