Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao has exhorted the officials to evolve an action plan for ensuring that the persons in-charge and panchayat secretaries work in tandem for the accelerated development of the villages.
The government had decided to appoint persons in-charges for all the gram panchayats — existing ones with elected bodies and the proposed new panchayats which would come into existence from August 2 — and the process for the appointment of village secretaries had already been initiated. Action plans should be prepared for ensuring that the persons in-charges and the village secretaries worked in tandem and the district collectors and officials at the State level should monitor and supervise the works that would be taken up in the respective villages.
Discretionary power
The government had decided to keep ₹30 crore, ₹1 crore each for all the 30 districts, as reserve fund for taking up works of immediate nature and the works in the villages would be taken up at the discretion of the respective village secretary. The Chief Minister reviewed the arrangements being made for the appointment of persons in-charge and village secretaries with senior officials here on Tuesday.
Steps should be taken to ensure that the persons in-charges and panchayat secretaries were entrusted with the responsibility of assessing the situation in the respective villages and prepare action plans for their transformation three years hence.
On probation
The officials concerned should monitor the status of implementation of the action plans thus prepared from time to time. The new village secretaries would be in probation for a period of three years and they would be provided with guidelines relating to their job as well as the tasks that should be taken up.
The progress of their work would be evaluated and the service of those who performed satisfactorily would be regularised and those who were not up to the mark would be removed. The government had decided to entrust works including tree plantation, management of nurseries, construction of graveyards and other works to the new secretaries and their performance in each of these areas would be evaluated from time to time.
The Chief Minister asked the officials to work out modalities relating to the wages being paid to the staff of the PR bodies. He wanted the officials to explore the possibility of mobilising additional resources for these local self-government units.
Budget for PR
The Chief Minister who wanted sewage treatment plants to be set up at mandal level said a proposal for announcing a separate budget for panchayat raj bodies was under active consideration of the government.
The government could not hold elections to panchayats due to legal hurdles and elections would be held as and when the court cleared these cases. Steps had been initiated to appoint persons in-charges to ensure that the delay in holding the elections did not hamper the development works of villages, the Chief Minister said.