Panchayat Act, 2018 aims at improving village body’s efficiency

Karimnagar: After formation of Telangana State, the TRS government focused its attention on decentralisation of governance and introduced new Panchayat Raj Act-2018.

The new Panchayat Raj Act-2018 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 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 population of just more than 500 people and the TRS government established 4,000 new panchayats through the new Panchayat Raj Act with which the number of villages has reached to 12,751 in the State.

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.

Duties of Panchayat body:

The newly elect panchayat body has right to impose penalty of Rs.500 to those who discard wastes irregularly. Giving importance to construction of Individual Sanitary Latrines (ISL's).  Utilising funds that are sanctioned by the government properly for the village development. Establishing nurseries in every village along with making efforts to increase the green cover by planting saplings every year.

Upa-Sarpanch :
The elected ward members will elect one of their members as a upa-sarpanch. According to Panchayat Raj Act, when the office of sarpanch is vacant, the upa-sarpanch shall exercise the power and perform the functions of the sarpanch until a new sarpanch is elected and assumes office. 

Preventing irregularities:
According to new Panchayat Raj Act-2018 introduced by Telangana government, a mandal level officer will inspect the functioning of panchayat body by visiting once in a three or four months along with checking the details in the register and records.

For the first time the government issued orders for the appointment of three co-option members in each gram panchayat. The Sarpanch, Spa-Sarpanch and ward members are accountable to the villages. Who act against o village development and do not attend the grama sabhas for three consecutive times will be removed from their positions.

The newly elected panchayat body must conduct grama sabhas for every two months and must analyse the progress of works that are taken up and must discuss the implementation of various welfare schemes to all sections of people and about developmental activities along with passing the resolution. Political analyst said that the current initiative if implemented in the right spirit, The Telangana State will become a role model for others.