Vijayawada : New sarpanches assume offices

Vijayawada : Putting an end to the special officers' rule in gram panchayats in the state, newly-elected village sarpanches and ward members who won in elections held in February took the oath and assumed office amidst celebrations by party workers and the family members on Saturday. Oath-taking was conduced without fanfare in view of Model Code of Conduct in force for ZPTC and MPTC elections.

The gram panchayats had been under the special officers' rule since August 2018 after the expiry of the term of incumbents. State Election Commission (SEC) which issued notification for polls early last year, had to postpone the process due to rising Covid pandemic. Finally, elections were conducted to more than 13,000 panchayats in February, 2021 in four pages.

In Nunna village near here, YSRCP-supported candidate K Sarala was elected as sarpanch and took the charge amidst jubilation of party leaders and other ward members. She said that she would try to fulfil the aspirations of the people and would try to develop the Nunna panchayat. Village panchayat secretary G V T Ramana and other staff accorded a warm welcome to new sarpanch.

Village panchayats help strengthening the democracy at the grassroot level as people can directly contact to the elected representatives to seek redressal of their problems. The sarpanches can also meet the people's representatives like MLAs, MPs, ministers to take local issues to the notice of the government to get funds for the development of villages.

With the setting up village secretariats after YSRCP came to power, the functions and duties have been clearly divided between the gram panchayats and village secretariats to avert the confusion among the staff of two departments and villagers.

Panchayat secretary acts as executive officer of the gram panchayat and shall function as a link officer between gram panchayats and the village secretariats. The state government inaugurated 15,004 secretariats in the state as an extension arm of the state government for implementation of various government schemes and services.

The secretariats are functioning in over 13,000 villages and 120 urban local bodies. With over 1.34 lakh village/ward secretariat functionaries and 2.26 lakh volunteers engaged in this new set up, the department of village and ward secretariats is monitoring the delivery of over 543 services to the citizens.

On the other hand, the gram panchayats mainly focus on the infrastructure facilities and needs of the people in villages. The village panchayat offices chiefly focus on supply of drinking water, maintenance of sanitation, laying of roads, streetlights and other facilities to the people. While the village secretariat staff take care of implementation of Navaratnalu (welfare schemes).