National Panchayati Raj Day 2020

The Panchayati Raj system is regarded as the oldest system of local governance or government in India. ‘Panchayat’ is a blend of two different words: “Panch” which means ‘five’ and ‘Ayat’ meaning ‘assembly’ and Raj meaning ‘Rule”.

A Panchayat is primarily headed by a Sarpanch who is usually a senior member and elected by the local community.

The 73^rd Amendment of the Panchayati Raj Act 1992, brought a major change in the old version of the Panchayati raj system of India implementing its effect from April 24, 1993. Since then every year on the 24^th of April the Panchayati Raj Diwas is celebrated. The day is observed in the whole of the country since the 24^th of April,2010.

The Panchayati Raj system followed the three-tier Panchayati Raj system in the country i.e.,

• At the village level, there is the Gram Panchayat.

• At the block level, there is the Panchayat Samiti.

• At the district level, there is the Zila Parishad.

The concept of the Panchayati Raj System was formed under the chairmanship of Balwantrai Mehta in 1957 and focused mainly on representative decentralization of powers.

The first state in India where the Panchayati Raj system was put into effect was Rajasthan.

Presently, there are 2.55 lakh Panchayats in India of which 2.49 lakhs are gram panchayats, 6285 are the block Panchayats and 596 are district Panchayats. There are nearly 30 lakh Panchayat representatives in the country.

The 73^rd amendment act has the following features

• The Gram Sabha is entitled to exercise and perform functions at the village level similar to the legislature of the state as the law may provide.

• States exceeding a population of around twenty lakhs are not required to form panchayats at the intermediate level.

• The area of the Panchayat must be divided into territorial constituencies such that the ratio between each constitutional population and the seats allotted to them in numbers shall be the same and hence all the seats shall be filled through direct election from the territorial constituencies.

• A Nagar Panchayat, a Municipal Council for a small urban area or region, and a Municipal Corporation for a large urban area shall be constituted.

• One-third of the total count of seats must be reserved by women who belong to the scheduled caste and scheduled tribes through direct selection.

• The Panchayati system is responsible for the preparation of the plans, and including the implementation of various schemes for social justice and economic growth and development of the gram areas or regions.

• The Panchayat is authorized to charge and collect taxes on behalf of the state governments. The Panchayats are empowered to receive grants-in-aid from the CFI(Consolidated Fund of India) of the particular state.

The current highlights

1. The Prime Minister launched the “Survey of Villages and Mapping with Improvised Technology in Village Areas on 24^th of April 2020 with the aim of procurement and providing the ‘record of rights” to the house owners of the village having houses in the rural areas in villages and also help in issuing property cards to several house owners. The distribution of property cards has been conducted physically and provided to almost one lakh household owners.

2. The Drone flying task has been undertaken in almost 8837 villages of which data related to 6438 villages and feature extraction of nearly 5,300 villages is completed.

3. The establishment of e-gram swaraj enhances the reliability of the Panchayat by induction of greater delegation of funds to the PRI which in turn enhances the transparency, accountability, and credibility.

4. The introduction of the Financial Management system which comprises Physical progress, financial progress Panchayat Planning with the Local Government Directory (LGD) to form a certain base for the system accompanied by the Public Financial Management System (PFMS) and Special Planning and Geotagging.

5. The implementation of the campaign Sabki Yojana Sabka Vikas as a people’s plan campaign (PPC) aimed at providing feasibility to the Gram Panchayat Development Plan for conducting transparent and participating exercises. The status of PPC is as follows:

1. 162156 in numbers (60%) of Gram Sabhas.

2. 1951770 in numbers (80%) of Gram Sabhas Scheduled.

3. 53910 (20%) of feedback from the facilitators.

4. 40 GPDPs are uploaded on e-Gramswaraj portal.

Conclusion

During the present situation of Covid-19, the Panchayats have actively participated in undertaking several preventive measures under the guidance and administration of the Prime Minister through the virtual interaction with the selected sarpanch of the gram panchayats on the National Panchayati Raj Day on April 24^th, 2020. It initiated several sanitization activities, including the appointment of volunteers from villages for the Covid management, maintaining the norms of social distancing, and compulsory usage of masks.