The Thiruvananthapuram district panchayat has been selected for the Deen Dayal Upadhyay Panchayat Sashaktikaran Puraskar instituted by the Union Ministry of Panchayati Raj. The award is given to best-performing panchayats (district, intermediate, and gram panchayats) across the States and Union Territories in recognition of the good work done at each level for improving delivery of services and public goods.
Across the State, five other local bodies, including the Nedumangad block panchayat, have won the award for the appraisal year 2017-18.
Addressing a press conference here, district panchayat president V.K. Madhu said the award was a recognition of the novel and diverse developmental and welfare projects taken up by the local body over the past four years.
“We have taken up a diverse array of projects aimed at expanding agriculture, water conservation, soil conservation, and improvement of infrastructure. Based on a report on the performing panchayats from the State level, a team from the Panchayati Raj Ministry visited here, looking at the functioning of each of the projects on the ground for over a week. The award was given based on these assessments. We had also won the Swaraj Trophy for the best district panchayat in the State the same year,” said Mr. Madhu.
Water conservation
Among the projects he highlighted was the Jalashree water conservation project, under which 3,500 public wells were recharged, 1,797 farm ponds and 91,662 rainwater pits were created, and 432 ponds were revived. Under the Vidyajyothi project, aimed at improving the educational standards of high school and higher secondary students, there has been a marked improvement in the overall performance of the district in the SSLC and higher secondary examinations. As part of the Grandhappura project, qualified librarians were appointed in more than hundred schools to promote reading habit among students. Facilities were improved in school libraries and around 300 public libraries.
Two thousand litres of milk from the panchayat-run farm at Chettachal is being distributed to the public under the ‘green milk’ project. A hatchery unit here is producing 45,000 poultry.
