Telangana Minister for Panchayat Raj and Rural Development Jupally Krishna Rao requested the Centre to introduce a new mechanism wherein the mandal and zilla parishads get funds from it, as the funds allocated by the State government are not enough.
Speaking at the Panchayat Raj Ministers’ meeting held at Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh on Tuesday, he said the mandal and zilla parishads used to get funding from the Centre along with gram panchayats during the 13th Finance Commission period, but the 14th Finance Commission had mandated devolution of funds only to gram panchayats forcing the two upper tiers of panchayat raj system to face serious funds crunch.
Mr. Krishna Rao stated that the Telangana government was working towards making the State 100% open defecation free (ODF) by April 2018. As part of it, 620 gram panchayats and three Assembly constituencies had already been declared ODF, he noted.
Stating that the government was also focusing on computerisation of citizen services at gram panchayat level, the Minister said 5,765 gram panchayats were already in that fold and an action plan had been prepared to computerise all the gram panchayats at the earliest. Towards ending corruption, the State government had also increased the very low honorarium of elected representatives in the panchayat raj system.
On the welfare and development schemes being implemented by the Telangana government, Mr. Krishna Rao said the two areas were the topmost priority of the government even though the State was formed only in 2014. He claimed that Telangana was the leading State in the country to give social security pensions to over 40 lakh persons every month.
The ₹ 200 per month social security (aasara) pension was increased to ₹ 1,000 per month to the old aged persons and widows and for the physically challenged it was hiked to ₹ 1,500 per month. From April this year, over one lakh single women were also being given ₹ 1,000 pension.
He explained that the State government had collected comprehensive household data by conducting a survey across the State in one day in August 2014 and with the help of that data they had effected changes in the welfare schemes including introducing several new ones. Under Grama Jyothi scheme, non-governmental organisations and elected representatives had adopted 2,584 villages and working for their development.
Union Minister for Rural Development, Panchayat Raj, Drinking Water and Sanitation Narendra Singh Tomar, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Panchayat Raj Ministers from several other States attended the meeting.
