Eraviperoor, the first grama panchayat in India to receive the National Award for Public Administration, has entered the Limca Book of World Records under the category of development.
The latest edition of the annual reference book documenting human and natural records has referred Eraviperoor as Kerala’s model village. “Eraviperoor grama panchayat is the country’s first panchayat to receive a national award for public administration. With priority to e-governance, rural development at the grassroots has received a big boost. The panchayat disseminates information via SMS alerts and honorarium and staff salary are paid online into bank accounts. All office records have been digitised,” says the Limca Book of Records.
Many unique schemes
Former local body chief N. Rajeev of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), who is also the present vice president of the panchayat, told The Hindu that various innovative schemes could be implemented in the panchayat in a time-bound manner.
A year ago, Eraviperoor panchayat’s programmes for waste disposal, drinking water supply, rural road development, employment generation, and free Wi-Fi hotspots were selected as model projects for implementation in 15 States.
The setting up of a Village Knowledge Centre had also garnered much attention in 2015. Eraviperoor became the first panchayat in the State to get ISO-9001certification for its Primary Health Centre (PHC) at Othera a year ago.
Free palliative care
The local body launched a free palliative care scheme for the poor and it received the State government’s Health Award and Pain and Palliative Care Award in 2014-15. Mr. Rajeev, a lawyer-turned-politician, said the panchayat had laid stress on e-governance at the grassroots, making local self-governance citizen-centric, aimed at an efficient, responsive, cost-effective, and result-oriented mechanism which would help a faster pace of rural development.
