Sircilla: At last, funds sanctioned for gram panchayats

Sircilla: The village panchayats, which have been suffering due to lack of funds from the time of their formation, breathed a sigh of relief as both the State and Central governments had released orders for sanctioning funds to the districts.

The public representatives were happy over the release of huge amount of funds after the formation of the newly elected body. They said that now they got an opportunity to solve various issues pertaining to several developmental works in their respective village panchayats.

In the beginning, the village panchayats had faced problems cheque power to the ruling bodies and the government too did not take any initiation to resolve the issue.

Later the funds, sanctioned by the State government, were invested in various programmes under 30-day special action plan that was introduced by the government. The public representatives restricted to the works of restoring canals, installation of electric poles and construction works of soaking pits. So, the development in village panchayats did not take place as expected. Village sarpanches had taken the 30-day action plan prestigiously and completed various developmental works by taking loans from private parties to make the programme successful.

There are about 255 village panchayats in Rajanna Sircilla district and as per 2011 census, the population is about 4,16,048 members in the respective village panchayats. The 14th Finance Commission had already sanctioned funds to village panchayats in two phases through State Finance Commission.

Through the State Finance Commission, Rs 39.37 lakh was sanctioned and from the Central government through 14th Finance Commission Rs 6.5 crore were sanctioned to village panchayats. The funds will be distributed to village panchayats as per the population ratio.

The funds, which were sanctioned now by both State and Central governments, will be directly credited into the bank accounts of village panchayats.