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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | NAC to monitor programmes at panchayats now by Nistula Hebbar, Kirtika Suneja

NAC to monitor programmes at panchayats now by Nistula Hebbar, Kirtika Suneja

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published Published on Jun 18, 2011   modified Modified on Jun 18, 2011

After land acquisition and food security, the National Advisory Council (NAC) has set its sights farther, this time to monitor programme implementation at panchayats. The council led by Congress president Sonia Gandhi feels the ministry of statistics and programme implementation is not doing enough to monitor the panchayat programmes, while panchayati raj ministry has little say since most programmes are out of its purview.

Monitoring panchayats would be part of an extended agenda of the council that includes governance and accountability besides urban poverty and focus on scheduled castes and scheduled tribes.

“The panchayati raj ministry is not effective and doesn’t have many programmes under its control. It is not effective in this field,” said NAC member NC Saxena.

One such programme is the Backward Regions Grant Fund which was designed to redress regional imbalances in development and provide financial resources for supplementing and converging existing developmental inflows into 250 identified districts.

The council which is concerned about the accountability and procedures of panchayats, says it will start off by looking at the panchayati raj institutions (PRI).

The ministry of statistics and programme implementation, apart from monitoring the performance of key infrastructure sector projects, also monitors all central sector projects costing R20 crore and more and the implementation of Member of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS). The panchayati raj ministry looks at the devolution of powers to panchayats so that they function as units of self-government and bring about rural development more in sync with local needs.

Saxena said that under State laws, wide-ranging powers for suspension and dismissal of panchayats are vested with the local bureaucracy, weakening PRIs. Hence, to be effective, panchayats would require sound district-and block-level administration. Further, gram sabhas should be given sufficient powers, such as recalling panchayats and monitoring mechanisms should be put into place to ensure that gram sabha meetings are held regularly.

“Efforts towards better accountability and performance from the local bureaucracy should go along with building local PRI capabilities,” Saxena said. In fact, Sonia Gandhi recently stressed upon the need to strengthen PRIs and called for regular gram sabha meetings with a fair representation of women participants along with greater transparency and accountability in the working of panchayats. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has also said that panchayati raj has led to decentralisation of political powers and brought greater transparency in implementation of government schemes due to social audit.


The Financial Express, 18 June, 2011, http://www.financialexpress.com/news/NAC-to-monitor-programmes-at-panchayats-now/805277/


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