Impact of Gram Panchayati Programmes on Socio-Economic Conditions of Women Beneficiaries

The system of democratic decentralization popularly known as Panchayat Raj is considered as an instrument to ensure democracy and socio-economic transformation. Hence, the study was under taken to know the socio-economic status of women beneficiaries relationship between their socio economic change and independent variables and the suggestions for effective implementation of the schemes. The data were collected from 360 women beneficiaries selected from four villages of Uppin-Betageri Gram Panchayat of Dharwad taluk of Dharwad district. Majority of the women beneficiaries belonged to old age group (43.62%), forward caste (55.55%), illiterate (63.88%), married (61.11%), nuclear family (63.33%), small family size (36.66%), farm labours (63.05%), marginal farmers (56.94%), low income level (82.22%), low level mass media participation (67.77%), medium level extension participation (54.64%) and cosmopoliteness (72.45%). The independent variables namely cosmopoliteness, mass media and extension participation showed significant relationship with the socio-economic change of women beneficiaries.