Danamma Koli of Torvi village is excited to vote in the gram panchayat elections because she has the opportunity to elect members to represent her ward after a decade.
“At least now, we can get many civic works done from them. The most important task is to build toilets to help the women of the village ,” she said.
Villagers of Torvi are hopeful of getting better civic facilities as the gram panchayat election is being held here after over 10 years. They had been struggling to have a representative at their village-level to heed their grievances.
Due to a technical glitch, Torvi, which is about six kilometres away from Vijayapura, did not have any representation either at the gram panchayat or the municipality level.
According to sources, almost a decade ago, there was a decision to bring the village within the Vijayapura City Municipal limits but due to alleged mistakes by officials, the village did not get included within the municipal limits.
“Thankfully, after 10 years, the government has decided to retain Torvi under the rural limits until further orders. Thus, the GP elections are taking place here,” said Adiveppa Salgal, a local leader.
He said that the absence of public and individual toilets is a major problem and after the elections, the villagers would give a year to the elected members to get toilets built in each house in the village. Meanwhile, people like Ms. Koli feel the need to bring the village within City Municipal Corporation limits to get better facilities, but are happy to have a GP member to get their grievances heard.
