Back to Village program is a historic one

Mukerjee Sharma
Gram Sabha is fulcrum of the entire Panchayat Raj system in India as it enables each and every voter of village to participate in decision making at local level. Panchayat Raj is a decentralised form of government where each villager is responsible for its own affairs. Mahatma Gandhi used to say that India would benefit if the villages were governed by village panchayat i.e. Gram Sabha. Village is the lowest unit of decentralized system. It should be small enough to permit everyone to participate directly in the decision making process. It is the basic institution of the participatory democracy. Each village is a little republic i.e. Swaraj of Mahatma Gandhi that paves the way for Sarvodaya (the development of all). Gram Sabha is an entity of the constitution of India and is legitimized statutory body to do multifaceted work at the village level. It was legitimized by the 73rd Amendment to the Indian Constitution (1992) which carved out the 3-tier of the Indian political system. In J&K state Panchayat Raj institution is not fully groomed and is still working on old fashion as there is no system of conducting Gram Sabha meetings on monthly basis. Beside, it is still working on 1-tier as two other tiers i.e. block development council and district level bodies have not been given shape so far. No doubt the J&K Government has empowered the panchayats by divolving the power of 30 departments to the panchayats. The latest one is mid day meal scheme and plantation activities of the Social Forestry Department.
J&K Government recently under the able and stable leadership of the Governor Satya Pal Malik took a historic decision of starting ‘Back to Village Program’. Under this program the officials from top to bottom held Gram Sabha meetings in all panchayats in 2-3 days to get the feedback at the grass root level about the working of Panchayat Raj and to prepare on spot a comprehensive blue print in close consultation and collaboration with the Gram Sabha as well as elected members and sarpanchs and other prominent denizens of the locality; taking into consideration local requirements and feasibility viz-a-viz state and national program launched by the government. The main focus is to address the grievances of the rural areas and to reduce the economic, social and development gaps between city and the rural areas and above all to strategise to achieve the target of doubling the agriculture income by 2024, a holistic program envisaged by the Prime Minister of India. In addition to this, the implementation of eight flagship programs i.e. Sarva Shikha Abhiyan, Mid-day Meal Scheme, Rajiv Gandhi Drinking Water Mission, Total Sanitation Campaign, National Rural Health Mission, Integrated Child Development Services, National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission and six objectives of the Bharat Nirman, which included rural irrigation, rural housing, rural electrification, roads and rural telephony. The Back to Village exercise is really unique of its kind and is getting applauds from every nook and corner of the state. There is a lot of hustle and bustle in the rural area because it is for the first time the whole government from chief secretary to down below has gone to the doorstep of the villagers. The people are pinning high hopes on this wonderful initiative. They are feeling happy and enthused as common man and women is being involved in the planning to education of the panchayat programs and almost in all spheres of the activities of the government. This program is historic one because Government after many hiccups has made up the mind to execute the panchayat works on participatory mode. The earlier efforts made in the field of social forestry, horticulture and rural development has remained in doldrum because of the non-seriousness of the government officials to implement on participatory pattern. Due to the launching of this Back to Village Program there seems to be high possibility of success of participatory mode of development in our state as participatory management has deep roots in our society, culture and heritage. In the past due to the participatory mode of development many monuments especially religious and social institutions, ponds, bowlis, lakes, playgrounds, lanes, drains, dharamshala, sarais have been constructed without much contribution of the government. Beside these programs, there are other repercussion after the successfully implementation of Back to Village Program in the state and this will work as a beacon of light for other parts of the country.
Back to Village Program will work as a panacea to solve the chronic problems of burgeoning population of Indian cities. It will give a relief to the country as a whole in sorting out pollution problem, water shortage, unemployment, health and hygienic issue, crime and drug vices due to the migration of youth in the cities in the search of livelihood. This will finally halt the migration from the rural areas to the cities and ease out the life of children and elders in the rural areas as they are deprived of required look after due to the migration of menfolk. This program will be beneficial and efficacious in dealing with the horrendous suicide of farmers all over the country by way of increasing the infrastructure facilities, irrigation facilities, loaning facilities for small to medium entrepreneurship, skill up gradation through various training programs, removal of marketing facilities and reducing the role of middle man hence doubling the income of the farmers by 2024. Another remarkable achievement of great repute will be that it will lay a hand on the corruption/skullduggery practices prevailing in the rural areas especially in the implementation of flagship program of MNERGA, MPLAD CDF (Constituency Development Fund) and other allied activities. Through Back to Village Program government can launch education and awareness programmes among the rural masses regarding new program, policies and growing trends in the field of education, health, climate changes, social evils, cyber crime, false and malicious propaganda of religion, caste, creed and colour.
To conclude, there is a piece of advice that the Government should keep the officials on-tenter-hooks so that they don’t become complacent with the initial little achievements as it requires a continuity and commitment to hit the pyramid. It is because in the past many good beginnings had been made by starting such noble schemes but finally ended up nowhere with the callous, lackadaisical and lack luster approach/behaviour of implementing agencies later on.
(The author is former Add. Principal Chief Conservator of Forest J&K State and Patron Chief of People’s Organisation for welfare and environment reconstruction (POWER)
feedbackexcelsior@gmail.com

Follow our WhatsApp channel