Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Feb 21: Maintaining that transparency and accountability has been strengthened while implementing various Rural Development schemes, the Minister for Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, Ali Mohammad Sagar today said that these programmes have been instrumental in changing the socio-economic profile of the rural and far-flung areas of the state besides ensuring the creation of assets for the convenience of the people.
While replying to the Demand of Grants of Rural Development Department & Panchayats in the Legislative Assembly, the Minister said that the pace of implementation of the flagship schemes MGNREGA has registered a phenomenal growth since 2008-09 onwards when the budget of the scheme was Rs. 86.51 crore to Rs. 850 crore and during the current financial year the scheme is expected to cross an availability of Rs. 1000 crores with zero liability to the next financial year.
“1.10 lakh number of works have been taken in hand and ending January 2014, 2.35 crore man-days have been generated which may touch 4 crore by the end of current financial year and next year’s labour budget for the first quarter stands approved at 2.88 crore man-days”, the Minister added and maintained that 10.99 lakh families have been registered and job cards issued to them.
“Jammu district has been ranked as one of the top most in the implementation of MGNREGA in the country and recently it was awarded by the Union Ministry at New Delhi”, the Minister maintained.
Referring to the mechanism of transparency and grievance redressal, the Minister said that the department has created a cell in the administrative department for redressal of grievances and the complaints received are given a track number and then response is elicited from various officials and the complainant is informed about the action taken.
Terming the incorporation of certain amendments in J&K Panchayati Raj Act, 1989 in order to incorporate certain broad features of constitutional 73rd Amendment like reservation to SC/STs, Women and direct elections to the chairpersons of all three tiers as historical, the Minister said it would go a long way in broadening the ambit of decentralization of powers and involvement of people at grass root level in day-to-day governance.
J&K Ombudsman for Panchayats Bill 2014 has been drafted and is being tabled in the House during current session, which will look into the complaints against Panchayats so as to ensure that PRIs function within the frame work of rules and regulations so as to make their functioning transparent and accountable, the Minister added.
While terming the process of empowering the Panchayats with powers of 14 vital departments as one of the major feature of ensuring the democratic decentralization of powers to the grass root level, the Minister said that the Government has fulfilled its promise of putting in place a vibrant Panchayati Raj System and these representatives are being involved in the policy formulation as well as implementation of various welfare schemes undertaken by the Government, the Minister said and maintained that senior officer of the level of Additional District Development Commissioner has been nominated as Nodal Officer for ensuring that the orders of empowerment of Panchayats are strictly adhered to.
While referring to the process of augmenting the infrastructural capacities of the Panchayats, the Minister said that the money released under the 13th Finance Commission is being solely utilized for capacity building of PRIs and 1678 Panchayat Ghars are being constructed in convergence with MGNREGA and funds for repair and renovation of the existing 2250 Panchayat Ghars have been released under the same award. He said in addition, Rs. 1.25 lakh for Halqa Panchayat has been released for developmental works to be identified and executed by these Panchayats.
“We have passed clear instructions to ensure that all the Panchayat Ghars constructed by December 2014. We have kept a budgetary provision for honorarium of Panches and Sarpanches in the budget and they are currently being paid an honorarium of Rs. 1000 and Rs. 2000 respectively as sitting fee besides they are being taken out the State for interaction and subsequently also trained at IMPA”, the Minister elaborated.
Referring to the Government’s decision of creating additional 177 CD Blocks as watershed in the history of the state, the Minister said that the same would ensure sustained and fast paced development of the rural areas. He said that the necessary directions have been passed for identifying the institutional structure and other related things for these blocks. Under the Rajiv Gandhi Panchayati Sashiktikaran Abhyan an amount of Rs. 29.96 crore has already been approved by Union Ministry of Panchayati Raj for the current year.
As many as 23 Members participated in the discussion which included, Sharief Niaz, Abdul Gaffar Sofi, Rashpal Singh, M. Y. Tarigami, Jugal Kishore, Dr. Shafi Wani, Hakeem Yaseen, Javaid Dar, Ashwani Kumar, Rafi Ahmad Mir, Harshdev Singh, Yashpal Kundal, Irfan Shah, Prof. Chaman Lal Gupta, Er. Rashid, Ashok Kumar, Shamima Firdous, Gharu Ram Bhagat, Nizam-ud-Din Bhat, Ch. Sukhnandan, G. M. Saroori, Charanjeet Singh and Peer Afaq.
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