Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, June 17: All Jammu and Kashmir Panchayat Conference (AJKPC) today said that they would establish direct contact with Centre to avail benefits of schemes provided by Centre to the Panchayat members, and warned ruling National Conference (NC) for becoming main hurdle in the empowerment of the Panchayati Raj in the State.
“NC has become main hurdle for Panchs in the State and we will teach them a lesson in the upcoming 2014 Assembly elections. They will have to pay for deceiving us. We have started preparation for teaching NC a lesson that they will remember”, said Shafiq Mir, chairman AJKPC.
“We are a large chunk of voters. You will see the consequences at the time of elections. We will launch a door to door campaign to aware people about the deception of NC and will ask them to not vote for NC,” he said.
Addressing a press conference here, Mir said that the package of Centre has nothing to do with the State and is the result of the efforts of Panchayat members. “We welcome the gesture from the Central Government. It is the result of the efforts of the Panchayat members and has nothing to do with the State Government which has always been a hurdle in the empowerment of Panchayati raj institutions. There is now no fun of going before the State Government; we will establish direct contact with the Central Government. These funds have come from the Central Government so why we need to beg before the State Government,” he added.
He, however, had apprehension over the interference of the State Government and urged the Centre to directly transfer the funds into the account of respective Panchayats.
“The Union Government should directly transfer the funds into the respective Panchayat’s Constituency Development Fund Accounts, so that the panchayats can independently use this fund in consultation with the Gram Sabha without any interference of bureaucrats. We have serious apprehensions over the State Government trying to interfere in the divulging of funds,” Mir said.
Union Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh during a function in Budgam area yesterday had announced that the Centre will provide Rs 420 crore to the Jammu and Kashmir Panchayats every year.
“Each of the 4,200 Panchayats in the State will get an amount of Rs 10 lakh as untied funds every year,” Ramesh had said.
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