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Doubts cast over the creation of new Gram Panchayats
Even six months after the establishment of 4,000 new Gram Panchayats, the responsibility of implementation of schemes has not been assigned to them and the citizens are forced to visit parent GPs or old panchayats to get benefits
Hyderabad: As the government did not initiate steps to transfer powers to the new Gram Panchayats on implementation of schemes and allotting the beneficiaries to the respective GPs, the purpose of creation of them has been coming under a question.
Even six months after the establishment of the 4,000 new Gram Panchayats, the responsibility of implementation of the schemes has not been assigned to them. The citizens of the new GPs are forced to visit the parent GPs or old panchayats to get benefits.
The Centre and State governments have been implementing several schemes in the Gram Panchayats like Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, PM Awas Yojana, Aasara pensions and others.
The State government has carved out 4,000 new Gram Panchayats from the old 8,000 GPs and has taken the number of GPs to 12,000. Polls have been held to all the GPs in January this year.
The idea behind creating the new GPs is to take the administration to doorstep of the villagers.
The government envisaged that with the creation of more GPs, implementation of the programmes would become effective.
The officials could serve better with less number of subjects.
It has gone to the extent of converting tribal hamlets into Gram Panchayats.
They have been provided with secretaries and other support staff. Panchayat for each 3,000 villagers have been established. Some Panchayats have less than 500 people.
However, the Panchayat Raj department which is responsible for the working of the GPs is yet to divide the beneficiaries of the schemes between the old and new villages. The beneficiaries of the new GPs are yet to get service from their own panchayats.
The department has to complete the allocation of the beneficiaries of MGNREGS to their respective GP. Appointment of field assistants for each of the new GPs is yet to be done. The beneficiaries of the ration cards have to be divided to their respective GPs.
Arrangements are yet to be made to receive applications for pensions, MGNREGS job cards, and other schemes in the new GPs.
With this the residents of the newly formed GPs have to travel to the old Panchayat offices to avail the benefits and for all other scheme related activities. The sarpanches of the new GPs were unable to address the issues of their subjects as they were not given powers.
The new panchayats have been getting a raw deal in the hands of the Panchayat Raj and Rural Development departments as the officials have been delaying the transfer of powers and responsibilities.
After months of waiting the sarpanches have been given the cheque power. The process of enlisting them in the banks has begun recently by collecting their digital signatures.
