State's first women election commissioner Neela Satyanarayan has mooted a special training for women representatives elected to local self-government bodies to understand their rights and duties.

To commence in October, Satyanarayan said that a detailed plan would be worked out to ensure that a training module is readied to train the women representatives of the local self-government bodies.

"There is a need for elected women representatives to understand their duties and rights better and a separate training programme for these women is needed to address this,'' said Satyanarayan who was attending a training programme at Yashwantrao Chavan Academy of Development Administration (YASHADA).

The main issues which would be the highlight of the module are women and child development, health, tribal welfare, malnourishment, rain water harvesting and effective implementation of the Panchayati Raj Act 1996.

With women's representation in local self-government bodies likely to increase to 50 per cent, the need of understanding duties and power becomes more essential, she added.

The training programme would make the women more aware about the schemes of the state government and their implementation.

The state has registered 80,000 female representatives at various levels of the local self -government bodies. She hopes that institute such as YASHADA, Yashwantrao Chavan Pratishtan, other Universities as well Non-governmental Organisations will help in the training. With all likelihood that the 30 per cent reservations in these bodies will increase to 50 per cent Satyanarayan is concentrating towards this effort. Satyanarayan took over from Nand Lal after retiring as additional chief secretary and as SEC she is responsible for the local elections in the state.