BHARATH, Pakistan, Jan 12 (IPS) - Raji is preparing for a two-hour journey on a horse-drawn cart that will take her to the health clinic nearest to this picturesque river bank village in central Pakistan.

Health care is not easily available to the people of Bharath, located along the Himalayan Chenab River in Pakistan's central Punjab province.

''We can only share our grief as we have no help in times of crisis,'' says the 32-year-old woman. It is specially tough during childbirth, she says.

Though the women have often asked their menfolk to take up the matter with health authorities, not much has happened.

However, things are now looking up for the village women who feel that finally they have got the power to help themselves.

Raji and other women in this village are feeling confident after a local poll that for the first time in Pakistan, has elected women to seats in village councils.

The New Year's eve election took place in 18 districts of Pakistan and was, indeed, the first democratic exercise in the country since the October 1999 military takeover in Islamabad.

Held as part of the military ruler Pervez Musharraf's plan to decentralise governance, the local polls have earmarked a third of seats in village councils for women.

The elections will be held in two more phases in other parts of the country, ending in August.

''We are hopeful that we will now be heard,'' says Raji, looking at Fatima, who has been elected a woman councillor.

Fatima is confident her election will make a difference. ''Things are going to change,'' she says, as other village women look on.

But the newly elected woman leader does not find it odd that she had to seek permission from her husband to contest the election.

Though the local polls have put women in positions of influence, it will not be easy for them to cast off their traditional dependence on male family members.

Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) working for women's empowerment, point out this cultural hurdle to raising the lot of rural women.

Like in much of South Asia, women are second class citizens in Pakistan. A deep-rooted social bias starves them of their share of nutrition, health care and education.

An estimate by Pakistan's renowned Dr. Mahboob ul Haq Centre for Human Development shows that nearly a third of girls and women in the country do not get access to basic health care.

An alarming 72 percent of the country's women are illiterate or poorly educated, compared to 47 percent of men.

The military government believes that giving a greater say to women in decision-making at the grass roots can help rectify this situation.

But many think that the lot of women will not improve until traditional male-dominated social relationships are challenged.

Political workers in the area say many women were prevented from contesting the village council elections.

''So many women wanted to contest but could not because their families did not allow them,'' says Farhat of the Pattan Development Foundation, an NGO which was involved in educating local voters before the polls.

According to figures provided by the national Election Commission, almost 20 percent of the 5,736 seats reserved for women in the local institutions, were not contested.

There were not enough contestants and some 40 percent of the elected women won unopposed.

The strongest opposition to women's participation in the election came from Islamic religious groups.

''Islam restricts women from intermingling with men -- women should stay at home,'' says Maulvi Allah Bakhsh, the head cleric in the village mosque.

Islamic religious parties and extremist groups had reacted sharply when the military government announced the reservation of seats for women in village councils a year ago.

These groups took to the streets and eventually forced the government to dilute the share of seats reserved from women from the proposed 50 to 33 percent.

According to Fida Hussain, another Pattan volunteer, many families withdrew their womenfolk from election candidature after being threatened with social boycott.

''An outcast from a biradri (community) would end up losing access to water supply and grazing grounds for their cattle,'' says Hussain.

However, the government says it knows that change cannot come immediately and the election of women to village councils is only the start of the process of their empowerment.

The National Reconstruction Bureau (NRB), the military government's think-tank that formulated the devolution of power plan, is now working on a programme to train the elected councillors.

''We will train the local level leaders in understanding the devolution law, but our primary focus will be rights and political education. Empowerment comes through awareness and assertion of fundamental human rights,'' says NRB consultant Saifullah Chaudhry.