Telangana CM pitches for development of villages

Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao instructed officials to organise a full-fledged training programme to the elected Sarpanches and Upa sarpanches in the ongoing village Panchayat elections to provide a total understanding to them in shaping the villages.

The Chief Minister also said that proper orientation needs to be provided to them in developing greenery in the villages and on sanitation programmes as well as a clear-cut understanding of the recently-enacted Panchayat Raj Act.

He instructed that copies of Panchayat Raj Act in Telugu should be sent to every Gram Panchayat, Mandal and Zilla Parishad officers.

Rao also said the newly-recruited Panchayat Raj Secretaries and elected sarpanches should be well oriented with the work so that they work hand in hand and together for the development of the villages.

The Chief Minister held a review meeting on the subject of imparting training to sarpanches and village Panchayat secretaries.

Chief Advisor to the government Rajiv Sharma, MLAs Vemula Prashanth Reddy, Marri Janardhan Reddy, Kale Yadaiah, CMO special secretary Bhoopal Reddy and others participated in the review meeting.

"Currently elections are being held for Village Panchayats. To have a village secretary to every village recruitment of village Panchayat Secretaries is in the process. Their role is crucial in the development of the village as a whole. Towards entrusting responsibilities and providing funds to the village panchayats there might be some unavoidable delay. Since the Government of India is going for vote-on-account budget, the state may also present vote-on-account budget," Rao said.

He added, "In the months of April and May, there would be elections to the Lok Sabha. The full-fledged budget will be introduced later after the elections. It would be possible to allocate budget to the Panchayats in the full-fledged budget only. In between that by imparting training to the sarpanches and village Panchayat secretaries they should be shaped as change agents for the integrated development of villages. For imparting the training Telangana Rural Development Institute, Administrative staff college of India, MCRHRD institute of Telangana and similar other organizations are to be involved.