In a new policy to develop each other’s villages, an official India Pakistan Joint Working Group is going to be organized between both countries. Now, India and Pakistan are taking interest in the local governance methods of each other’s functioning. The meeting will be held in Delhi and then in Lahore.

At the same time, India has showed more interest in Gah village in Pakistan. The Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh grew up in the village that comes now in Pakistan. The Panchayati Raj ministry has selected Gah with other 6,000 Pakistani villages for the purpose is on the radar of the Panchayati Raj Ministry.

Panchayati Raj Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar said that people at the local level are the ones who have showed keen interests in talking and meeting for the first time. At the local level of the governance, Pakistan needs more development in the different sections of the society.

According to data, Women representation in the legislatives accounts for 36 percent in legislation. However, in Pakistan there are only 14 women among the 6,000 union council leaders. Women in Pakistan is not much politically aware and the government had no plan for the development of women’s social and political situation in the country

India had implemented decentralized planning 10 years before for the development of local self-governance in India. However, Pakistan had launched the similar scheme in the country in 2002. In Pakistan, the government has reserved 5 per cent seat in local bodies for minorities.

Further, a joint working group of the Minstry of Panchayati Raj and National Reconstruction Bureau of Pakistan is likely to meet in Delhi in April. There is the planning that the local representatives from both countries would share tips of local governance and that would be more helpful for both countries.

Institute of Social Sciences Director George Mathew said: Both, in India and Pakistan, more than 70 per cent of the people live in thousands of villages. So, if the local government institutions come together, there will be nothing better than that.

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