New Panchayat Raj system from August 2 in Telangana

​Hyderabad: The instate of new Panchayat Raj system would be celebrated all over the State on August 2, the day it will come into existence. Panchayat Raj officials have been instructed to hold grand celebrations.

According to sources, the government considers the establishment of new panchayats as an achievement and had decided to celebrate it. Special officers and the public representatives of rural local bodies would participate in the celebrations. 

The government established 4,000 new panchayats over the existing 8,600 through the new Panchayat Raj Act. The bill relating to the Act was passed in the previous budget sessions of the Assembly. The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) had made a promise to raise the number of panchayats in the State and also to give panchayat status to the agency and Lambada Tandas. 

Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao had personally taken interest in the passage of PR bill and also establishment of new panchayats. He said that the establishment of new panchayats would ensure more decentralisation of powers and development of the villages.

Funds given to panchayats through the State and Central Finance Commissions and State government would help for the development of more villages in a quick manner. The new Panchayat Raj Act facilitated creation of new panchayats by reducing the population criteria and relaxing other ones. The old Act had ruled that a panchayat could be created if a village and its hamlets have a population of 5,000. The new Act had reduced the number of population required up to 2,500. 

The new Act also has given scope to turn the villages into panchayats which are three to four kilometres away from the existing panchayats irrespective of population. Some villages of the agency areas have been upgraded to panchayats even though they have a population of 100 people. With this the number of villages has reached 12,751. 

According to the rules, new panchayats could be established only after the end of the term of the present ones. The term of the present panchayats would end on July 31 and the revised panchayats, old and the new, would come into existence from August 1. 

As the term of the panchayat elected bodies would end on July 31, the government made arrangements for the appointment of the special officers. The district officials have been finding officers who could be appointed as special officer as per the rules. The offices of the new panchayats would be inaugurated on August 2 in the presence of special officers, mandal parishad officials, MPTCs, ZPTCs and mandal parishad presidents.