Gaon burha institution set to be strengthened

Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu today assured to take up the issue of providing facilities to the 'gaon burha' institution in the next budget session of the Assembly.
Responding to a private member's resolution moved by former chief minister Nabam Tuki to provide free electricity, telephone and television connection to all the gaon burahs (village headmen) for their contribution towards all-round socio-economic development and maintaining tribal customary law in the state, Khandu said provisions would be made in the next budget.
Informing that the state has 1,342 head gaon burhas and 8,024 gaon burhas, the chief minister said that at the village level the gaon burha institution is one point solution to all problems.

"No government in the state had given serious thought on the institution. My government has enhanced the honorarium of the head gaon burhas from Rs 600 to Rs 1500, while for gaon burhas it was enhanced to Rs 1000 from Rs 500," Khandu said.
The matter needed to be thoroughly discussed, he said.
On providing free electricity to the gaon burhas, Khandu said that the state was incurring loss to the tune of 300 crore annually since the government received only Rs 200 crore from the Centre against operational and power purchase cost of Rs 250 crore each.

Earlier, Tuki while raising the issue informed that the state cabinet during 2015 approved providing two units of free power to all the gaon burhas along with free telephone and TV.

"The government needs to strengthen the institution," Tuki added.
The chief minister said that the previous Congress regime had provided TV to gaon burhas only in certain districts which was very unfortunate.
"We have provisions in the budget for providing TV to the gaon burhas and all the left out will be provided within this financial year," he assured and requested Tuki to withdraw the resolution.
Tuki later withdrew the resolution after getting assurance from the chief minister.