Central, State schemes cause fiscal burden on Gram Panchayats

Hyderabad: The Gram Panchayats (GP) are starved of funds to implement the schemes of the Central and State governments and most of the panchayats have been shirking their  responsibilities.

Though the Centre and State government have been initiating schemes for the welfare and development of the villages, they have been ignoring the implementation the schemes by not providing enough funds for programmes. This is leaving the burden of operating the schemes on the GPs.

The Centre has been implementing schemes like Swachh Bharat, National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREG) and 13 other schemes. State government has been implementing E-panchayats, Haritha Haram and few others.

Under the schemes the State and Centre have been providing funds to purchase the material and inputs for the implementation of the schemes. Under Swachh Bharat Mission, the Centre had been providing funds for the construction of toilets, procurement of tricycles to collect garbage and bins to store the waste. Under NREG scheme, the Centre had been paying wages to the job card holders and field assistants.

The State government provided saplings for planting in the villages and established nurseries to grow the saplings. Under E-panchayat scheme, it supplied computers and software to the panchayats.

Some Sarpanches have said that under the Swachh Bharat Mission maintaining the tricycles has been left to the panchayats. No separate funds have been given to pay remuneration to the tricycle pullers. Funds have not been given to replace the bins for collecting the garbage.

In the same way funds have not been provided by the State government to protect the saplings planted under Haritha Haram programme. Funds were not issued for watering plants. The salaries of the data entry operators have been paid by the panchayats under the E-panchayat scheme.

Founder President of Telangana Sarpanches Association Hazari Srinivas said that apart from operating the government schemes, the panchayats have the responsibility of maintaining the water supply schemes, sanitation, construction of CC roads, maintaining the street lights and others.

He said they have been getting about Rs 10 lakh per year from the Centre and the State government under Finance Commission Grants. They must pay the salaries of the electricians, water scheme operators, sanitation workers and karobars.

Srinivas said they have to maintain and replace the water pumps (if needed) of the water supply schemes, replace the street lights (if needed) and others. This takes away most of the funds of the Gram Panchayats. Some villages are not in a position to pay electricity bills regularly. In these circumstances operating the government schemes had become a burden on them and they were unable to provide funds in this regard.