Dakshina Kannada Zilla Panchayat members on Wednesday opposed a proposal by panchayat president Meenakshi Shanthigod to utilise Deen Dayal Upadhyay Panchayat Empowerment Award money just for a couple of works and demanded that the funds may equally be distributed among all constituencies.
Eventually, the Emergent General Meeting of the panchayat here resolved to utilise the award money of ₹ 50 lakh towards works in every zilla panchayat constituency. Presiding over the meeting, Ms. Shanthigod earlier proposed to construct a community hall in Shanthigod in Puttur taluk and a canteen and library at the panchayat headquarters in Mangaluru.
The Union government had announced the awards for panchayats — Dakshina Kannada Zilla Panchayat (₹ 50 lakh), Udupi and Hosanagara taluk panchayats (₹ 25 lakh each) and Radderanagur (Nargund taluk), Ujire (Dakshina Kannada) Binkadakatti (Gadag) gram panchayats (₹ 8 lakh, ₹ 15 lakh and ₹ 12 lakh, respectively). The State government had also issued a detailed guidelines on the utilisation of the award money.
While preparing an action plan to utilise the funds, the panchayats were asked to plan such works that can enhance the standard of life of rural people and create permanent assets. Works related to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes should be allocated 25 % of the funds while another 5 % should be utilised for the benefit of differently-abled persons.
Meanwhile, panchayat member Mamata Gatti raised the issue of non-payment of ₹ 8 lakh bills towards water supply during last summer through tankers in Naringana Gram Panchayat. Such inaction would dissuade people from providing service in future, she said. Chief Executive Officer R. Selvamani said that the Deputy Commissioner has cleared the bills under the National Disaster Relief Funds guidelines. Members wanted a resolution to be passed urging the government to route funds for drinking water supply through the Zilla Panchayat instead of the Deputy Commissioner.
Deputy Director of Horticulture H.R. Naik told the meeting that the government has already released ₹ 29.14 crore towards compensation for 28,154 arecanut farmers whose crop was affected by fruit-rot disease. As many as 56,474 farmers had applied for compensation and the department, along with the Revenue Department, had recommended ₹ 60 crore compensation after a joint survey. As the compensation amount is directly credited to the bank accounts of beneficiaries, the department does not have the exact details of compensation given to individual farmers, he said.