It is generally seen that usually there is inadequate overwhelming response from the concerned persons to the exercise of tendering by many Government Departments despite most of these now being floated through e-tendering process. There could be host of reasons for that which, therefore, requires the entire gamut of the process to be made not only more transparent but flexible as also attractive. That alone could result in timely execution of projects and properly implementing concerned Government schemes. However, the move of the Government to decide to restrict to local residents of a Panchayat to participate in tendering process is yet another step taken towards according more importance and relevance to Panchayats besides ensuring that the development process at the grass root levels was accelerated. Various steps, one by one, being taken by the Government of Jammu and Kashmir towards bringing in more transparency in the functioning of Panchayats, now, better placed than any before, were surely going to show better results and in that spirit, more involvement in more activities by Panchayats and its members including undertaking development works would reinforce the spirit of strengthening these institutions by the villagers. Not only would it be expected that output and quality of such works, though up to a limit only, would be satisfactory but the element of accountability and due ”clarification” of any type of lapses would be direct at the village Panchayat levels.
It is entirely advisable as also feasible to have such works got executed at Panchayat levels up to a limit only, both on experimental basis and also testing the capabilities to handle bigger projects at village levels in coming years , hence a cap or limit up to Rs. 3 lakh as the cost of work is quite on a reasonable side. That in case there was some type of reservation or reluctance about such participation at a particular Panchayat, the neighbouring ones could enter their shoes makes such decision of the Government not skip for the purpose the grass root village level – that if not a particular Panchayat, its neighbouring one could do. The idea behind such innovative decision, though to start with, is ensuring creating assets by the locals and have ownership thereof too thus planting a sense of partakers in the overall development going on at micro and macro levels in the country.
However, for all such innovative steps with an aim to involve more and more local residents in the village Panchayats, there should be a mechanism of getting the prospective ones registered which should be made at District levels coupled with hassles free completion of barest normal formalities. We learn that a simple process, in this connection , has to be gone through by the desirous people at respective Deputy Commissioner’s office for being able to participate in accepting tenders for different works and the documents like Aadhar Card, Pan Card, Domicile certificate are enough for the purpose. Further verification process which being mandatory and to be completed by the concerned Panchayat and the local Police is not expected to be any time consuming process. It is a natural corollary that registration being one time process, the concerned person needs not any more of it excepting renewal thereof periodically as per the tenets of the scheme. There could be some relaxation too in the process depending upon the extent of response and details about the entire decision taken by the concerned UT departments.
There is no doubt that such steps of the Government basically aimed at strengthening the Panchayati system and promoting development at local levels is also aimed at maximum local participation in matters concerning their villages’ development . The emphasis on speed of works, quality of works and timely execution of works would also result in benefit of local people. Panchayats being there for the name sake as against working and performing Panchayats with transparency, accountability and maximum participation of the people is all envisaged by the Government to be realised in letter and spirit for obvious reasons.
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