Sir,
This refers to Back to Village programme conceived by JK Government. The week long programme has just concluded. I saw people preparing memorandums , representations and handing over the same to Visiting Officers. If people start believing Back to Village programme will ensure huge funding and execution of mega developmental works in their villages, I must tell them humbly that this won’t happen at all. More than 4500 visiting officers have filed reports, will Government review all the reports of these 4500 GazettedOfficers ?
The Visiting Officers are given a long wish list by people which has a financial implication of at least Rs 1 crore in each village. In J&K we have around 4500 village panchayats. Can Government afford to allocate Rs 4500 Crores or more to these villages ?
The participation in this programme what I have seen is actually meant to ensure better governance and transparency plus creating a village social audit which is lacking. I wish people continue to take members of panchayat and officials to task in the same way as they did during last one week programme. The kind of enthusiasm people have shown in Back to Village programme must be capitalized. This can only happen when there is a follow-up campaign. Hope Chief Secretary B V R Subramanyam will give a serious thought to it
Dr Raja MuzaffarBhat
Chairman
JK RTI Movement
II
Sir,
“Back to village”(B2V) initiative taken by the Government from 20th to 27th of June is an innovation.This programme actually defines the word democracy in a more refined way as this took care of the people at the rural areas.According to the sources about 4500 officers were deployed for the valuable feedback from the people. For the first time the problems at the individual level have been taken care of. The people see that their problems are being heard by the officers sitting amidst them.The question arises how far can it prove beneficial as the problems are in plenty.The problems vary from area to area like the road connectivity, educational and health facilities which mostly remained aloof from the remote areas and the people suffer. The MGNREGA employment issues, water facilities, power supply and much more is discussed.
B2V is actually the programme which empowers the democratic people to bring fore their grievances. There is manipulation on the activities as the data is to be saved and transferred to the concerned office which will look into the matter and try to solve the difficulty.
With the advance in the technology equally the advanced becomes the development and to prove that everything can run smoothly there needs to be work at the grassroots level which people have hoped for.
Rajat Kumar
Bigota, Doda
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