Congress has alleged that government had the panchayati raj system weak in the state by snatching rights from panchayats. “The ruling BJP is ignoring Constitutional amendments which aim to strengthen panchayats and give them more rights to function as a decision making body,” said PCC president Nandkumar Patel after he and Congress leaders submitted a memorandum to Governor Shekhar Dutt on Monday urging him to take cognisance of debilitating panchayati raj system in the state.
“The bureaucracy has snatched the rights of panchayats under silent approval of the government,” Patel charged.
“In last years, the BJP government gradually pruned rights of panchayats through notifications, circulars and directives. However, the panchayat representatives are not even able to use the existing rights given to them because the babudom is preventing them to do so,” he said.
“It is unfortunate that despite three-tier panchayati raj system being implemented in the state, about 1.50 lakh representatives do not have basic rights. This has affected the functioning of panchayati raj institutions,” he added.
The Congress submitted 27-point memorandum to the Governor highlighting that the all the policy-related decision were being taken by the CEO or official of the relevant department instead of panchayati raj institutions or gram Sabhas.
The Congmen also pointed that the meetings of permanent committees of panchayats in presence of government officials were not being held every month. Besides, the unanimous decision taken by the panchayats are also being ignored by the government officials, they said.
The Congress further indicated that the then Union Minister for Panchayat and Rural Development Manishankar Ayyer and Chief Minister Raman Singh had prepared a joint draft on August 28, 2005 to transfer 22 departments to panchayats but no step had been taken in that direction by far.
The Congmen said that works under MNREGA were being selected and approved by Collectors and CEOs instead of district panchayats and janpad panchayats. “The role of gram panchayats and gram Sabhas has been nullified,” they pointed.
Similarly, they said, the recruitment rights had been snatched by the panchayati raj institutions. “Even the panchayats are not being allowed to use their right to write annual confidential report (ACR) of the CEO, officials and employees of district panchayats,” they added.
While submitting memorandum to Governor Patel was accompanied by Satyanarayan Sharma, Tamradhwaj Sahu, Kuldeep Juneja, Yogesh Tiwari, Amit Pandey, Shiv Singh Thakur, Dr Shiv Narayan Dwivedi, Anjay Shukla, Harshad Mehta, Ashok Raj Ahuja, Shailesh Nitin Trivedi, Sushil Anand Shukla, Chhaya Verma, Jaswant Cladius, Udho Ram Verma, etc.
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