As many as 19 women in Rewa district have been awarded gun licences. While nine of them got the award for keeping their villages clean, the rest bagged it for being members of village defence committees. The area is notorious and government officials for long avoided venturing into the interiors. “They first kept their villages clean and later got employment under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme to build toilets,” Rewa collector D P Ahuja, the brain behind the initiative, told The Indian Express. He said the women were active and took part in other government projects as well.The nine beneficiaries hail from villages that have already won the President’s award under Nirmal Gram Panchayat scheme, and the district has recommended names of 108 more gram panchayats for the award. Ahuja said he told the women that if they could keep their villages clean, he would ensure quick development.The state has bagged maximum number of Nirmal Gram Puraskar launched by the Central Government under total sanitation campaign, which insists, among other criteria, on elimination of the practice of open defecation. “Guns will give an immense boost to their confidence,” Ahuja said, claiming it would prompt them to excel in other initiatives.Parts of Rewa suffer from the dacoit menace and areas bordering Uttar Pradesh are particularly vulnerable. Guns are also a status symbol in these areas and thousands of people apply for licenses. In Rewa alone, about 14,000 have applied for licenses.“By giving licenses, we want to send a strong message to the dacoits that they will not be able to browbeat women into submission,” said Superintendent of Police Shahid Absar.While it’s common for male members of Gram Suraksha Samitis to get licenses, women got these for the first time on Sunday at a grand function in Rewa. The committees function under the respective police stations, and occasionally accompany the police in raids given their knowledge of the local terrains.
