Sketches of new panchayats get finishing touch

District Collectors and officials are working overtime to finish the proposals and send them to government on Jan 25

Hyderabad: The process of forming new gram panchayats in the State has reached the final stages and the proposals on new panchayats would reach the government by January 25.

Collectors of the 30 districts have already prepared the list of villages which could be made into gram panchayats and have been waiting for forwarding them to the government. The Revenue and Panchayat Raj departments will examine these proposals and finalise the list of new panchayats by end of January, according to sources.

The government will issue draft notifications and the Collectors will hold public hearings on objections if any. The process may be completed by the third week of February and the new gram panchayats may come into existence by the first week of March.

The Collectors have sent about 100 recommendations on an average from each district for the formation of new panchayats from their respective districts. They have identified villages which could be made into panchayats as per the guidelines issued by the government.

They identified villages have more than 500 population within the existing panchayats and are about 1.5 kms away from the headquarters of the panchayat. Lambada Tandas would also be converted into panchayats. As many as 3,000 new panchayats may be formed.

The officials have already fixed the boundaries of the proposed new panchayats. The Revenue officials have identified the survey numbers to be included in the proposed new gram panchayats.

As the government is in a hurry to form new panchayats, the officials have expedited the process in this regard. The officials are working day in and day out to prepare the proposals so that they reach the government by 25th of this month.

The government wants to conduct elections to the new panchayats along with the existing ones as per the schedule, according to official sources. It has plans to conduct the elections in February itself and has been putting pressure on the officials to complete the formation of new panchayats at the earliest.

Once the new panchayats are formed, the reservations would be finalised for all panchayats and the list of panchayats to which elections have to be conducted would be sent to the State Election Commission, said the sources.

The government is also eager to introduce the new Panchayat Raj Bill and get it passed in February so that the new rules for conducting the elections to the rural local bodies could be conveyed to the SEC.  

The government would finalise the system of election of the sarpanch, indirect or direct, in the PR Bill.

NM Satheesh