In its 60 years of existence in the country, the Church's Auxiliary for Social Action (CASA) has visualised a society wherein peace,, justice and equality prevail and all citizens irrespective of caste, creed, language and religion live in peace and harmony and where the poor, the marginalised and the underprivileged have equal opportunity for fullest development of their inner potential, CASA has worked towards its vision during the past five decades but realises that the 73rd Constitutional Amendent has the potential to facilitate the process of empowerment of the poor and the marginalised specially the women through self governance and transfer ofpower. Thye objectives with which the new panchayat system has been created is much in line with CASA's objective of transformation of people's positions through creating movements around issues.

Church's Auxiliary for Social Action (CASA) is an autonomous reilief and development organisation operational in the country since 1947. it has stood with the poor and the marginalise in their struggle for emancipation and empowerment. In its 53 years of existence, CASA's activities have been guided by its vision and mission of a just, peaceful and egalitarian society through the empowerment of the masses, cutting across caste, religions and political lines. Today, CASA is operational in almost all States and Union Territories of India through its 4 zonal and 14 sector officies wit a fultime working strength of 700 staff.

For its development interventions in the state of Himachal Pradesh, CASA woks through 6 non-governmental agencies. These are Energy Environment Group (EEG) in Una; Manav Seva Sansthan (MSS) in Bilaspur; Society for Environmental & Rural Awakening (ERA) in Kangra; Youth Technical Training Society (YTTS) in Solan; Dar-u;-Fazal Childrens Homes (DFCH) in Manali; and Social Action for Rural Development of Hilly Areas (SARDHA) in Sirmour districts

Though CASA was implementing various grassroots development programmes through its existing partner netwotk in the state of Himachal Pradesh, it made significant efforts to bring the issue of panchayats to the portpolio of activities of its partner agencies in other states too. With the subject of Panchayats being new to CASA as well as its partners, both grew together in developing an understanding on the subject from a non-governmental perspective. While CASA continued to delve on the issue at national as well as regional levels, its partners were more focussed at the local level only. During the course of first five years ever since elections to the panchayats under the new system were completed the work portpolio included the following:-

1. Through a series of pre-elections workshops in the state, parner agencies and their staff were made aware of the provisions int he new Act, reservation and enhanced role of women in local governance, the need for voter awareness to the multi-ballot polling system and the role of non-governmenatl agencies. As many as six workshops were conducted at various locations in the state in which over 200 grassroots level functionaries took part. User friendly workbooks were developed and distributed at the work shops.

2. A set of posters was created and distributed throughout the state to educate voters on the need to make informed choices on selecting their ward representives, up-pradhans and pradhans. The posters clearly addressed the issue of women reservation as also the enhanced role of women in the election process. The set of posters was not only well received by the communites but contributed a great deal in making people aware about their rights and resposibilities.

3. As a follow-up to the pre-election campaign, the need for empowering elected panchayat representatives with information was identified as the crucial input. Consequently, book titled NAYA DAUR was published and circulated amongst the newly elected panchayat representatives. Written in Hindi, the book captured the essence of the panchayati raj system from the earlier historical records; brought to light the developments that led to the 73rd Amendent of the Constitution; and outlined the major provisions in the HP State Act. The book became a milestone in the panchayat literature.

4. To fulfill the regular communication needs and to link-up partner agencies in the state and the rest of the country, a regular newsletter PANCH PARMESHWAR was published and circulated widely all over the country. The newsletter reported on inspiring case studies from across the regions ad highlighted crucial issues for effective functioning of panchayati raj institutions. It helped to critically appraise the State Panchayat Act to make its provisions more effective under the local conditions.

Besides these rather centralised activities, the partner agenices contributed towards developing innovative approaches for empowering panchayats at local level. The results of these initiatives were reported in the newsletter as also in the regular network meetings. Such deliberations helped develop and improvise intervention strategy from time to time -the need for a State-level workshop was the end result of these interactions.