Sarpanches in quandary over inadequate funds

Adilabad: With a heavy load of pending problems and with very meagre funds allocation, the newly elected sarpanches of Gram Panchayats (GPs) are in a rather difficult position in managing the expenses of GPs.

Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao had announced Rs 16 lakh funds to Gram Panchayats, which have population more than 500 persons. But these funds are not enough even to pay street light bill, water supply, and sanitation and additional funds are needed to pay panchayat staff salaries.

The newly elected Sarpanches are grumbling against the government for allotting insufficient funds, which couldn’t solve the problems prevailing in the villages. Considering the past experiences, villagers and public representatives are expressing their doubts over the release of funds in some villages.

Five years ago, the State government never allocated funds to gram panchayats. According to the population, the Central government use to allocate funds ranging from Rs 4 lakhs to Rs 6 lakhs, based on the population. Of the total funds released, 20 per cent was used to pay electricity bills and the remaining amount was used to take up development works.

Farmer sarpanches criticised that the State government had showed discrimination towards village panchayats by not allocating any funds in the past five years, which led to pending of number of problems in villages.

The Sarpanches are considering solving some of the problems in the villages with the Rs 16 lakhs, that have been prevailing for the past five years.

Pedda Maleborigaon, a newly formed Gram Panchayat under Adilabad mandal, consists of Chinna Malegam, KB Colony, Dharmuguda and Tekdigudem villages. These villages with a population of more than 1000 persons, have no proper road facilities, electrical polls, drinking water supply, and drainage system. RTC buses will not come to these villages as there is no proper road. The Gram Panchayat needs about Rs 2 crores to solve all the problems of these villages.

The maintenance cost of Pedda Maleborigaon is very high. The annual electricity bill is about Rs 1,63,000, water supply bill is Rs 70,000, sanitation workers salaries is about Rs 3 lakhs and approximately Rs five to Rs six lakh is being spending for maintenance only. The sarpanch is in quandary over how to solve pending problems with these insufficient funds.

Pedda Maleborigaon village sarpanch Kumra Ganga Devi said the village has no road connectivity to the nearby villages and the quality of inner roads is very low. Drainage system is also very poor and Rs 16 lakh funds are not enough to solve all these problems in the village. A new GP building also has to be constructed as there is none in the village, she added.

A villager Sitaram said there are not enough current poles in the village and street lights are not yet set up. Sewage water flows on to the road without proper drainage system. roads. Alternate arrangements should be made to solve the severe water scarcity in the village till Mission Bhagiratha works are completed, he observed. He stated, “We thought new panchayats will solve our problems but without sufficient funds, there is no use of forming new GPs.”