| Pathey has been conducting district level meetings / workshops to train and motivate members of civil society to pursue citizen budget work as an instrument in their struggle for protecting rights of the marginalized communities.
The citizens of the state are mainly governed by the state laws, enforced with financial resources. There is a focus on law in day-to-day’s work of civil society organizations. Most of them in some way or other are engaged in demanding enforcement and implementation of various laws or enactment of new laws or amending the existing laws, or raising voices against undemocratic social practices.
All these works require financial resources for implementation. As civil society organizations are often weak in budget work, they are unable to use it as an instrument for social change. By enhancing their capacity, Pathey will be able to create a better environment for utilization of budget as one of their instruments for securing accountability of the system.
In the past, Pathey has given training to civil society organizations completely new to citizen budget work, and the results have been encouraging, especially in Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Maharashtra. Over a period of time the organizations trained by Pathey have started doing budget work on their own. Last year we trained staff members in CRSD, Andhra-Pradesh. These efforts have created budget groups at sub-national level. Within state, Pathey has been engaging with grass root level and issue oriented networks for budget training and monitoring the welfare schemes for the dis-advantageous groups. |
