Special officers to look after gram panchayats

Vizianagaram: The AP government has released a GO MS No.269 to appoint special officers to look after the administration in gram panchayats as the tenure of the sarpanches ended on August 1. The State government has directed the District Collectors to make arrangements to allot one gram panchayat to each officer.

The tenure of the sarpanches expired by the end of July and the government was supposed to conduct elections to 12,918 gram panchayats but it is not in a position to conduct the elections due to various political reasons.

So the gram panchayats should be looked after either by the sarpanches or special officers. Actually the sarpanches expected that their tenure would be extended for another 6 months as the government would require their support and services ahead of general elections.

They had approached the Chief Minister and appealed to him to extend their tenure and appointed them as person in-charges to the panchayats.
But the government had preferred to appoint special officers to supervise the administration in the villages.

From Thursday onwards the special officers, who will be appointed by the District Collector would look after the developmental works including the implementation of welfare schemes too.