President Droupadi Murmu presents National Panchayat Awards at the National Panchayati Raj Day celebration at Vigyan Bhavan in New Delhi on Monday | pti
BHUBANESWAR: Ganjam, the home turf of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, was awarded the best district panchayat or zilla parishad and Hinjilicut the best block panchayat or panchayat samiti in the country at the National Panchayat Awards-2023 in New Delhi on Monday.
The awards were given away by President Droupadi Murmu to Ganjam collector Dibya Jyoti Parida and other officers of the districts. While Ganjam zilla parishad was awarded Rs 5 crore, Hinjilicut block received Rs 2 crore.
Under Hinjilicut block, Kanchura and Syasan Ambagam gram panchayats received the ‘healthy panchayat’ (second position) and ‘clean and green panchayat’ (second position) awards respectively. With all the 6,200 persons above 18 years of age from 1,800 families having enrolled themselves under the central government sponsored old age pension scheme, life insurance and accident insurance schemes, Kulada GP under Bhanjanagar block of Ganjam district was awarded second position as a ‘socially secured panchayat’. The three panchayats were conferred the Deen Dayal Upadhyay Satat Vikas Puraskar by the Union Minister of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Giriraj Singh.
Under the special category of awards, Bonaigarh gram panchayat in Sundargarh received the Gram Urja Swaraj Vishesh Panchayat Puraskar and Carbon Neutral Vishesh Panchayat Puraskar. It was selected for the awards for innovatively reducing power consumption of individual users by erecting solar panels and exemplary work towards achieving Net-Zero carbon emissions. Ankuli panchayat in Ganjam was also presented the Gram Urja Swaraj Vishesh Panchayat Puraskar.
The National Panchayat Awards honour the best-performing panchayats (local self-government bodies) across the country by assessing their performance in attainment of SDGs. The awards were first instituted in 2011 and have since been held every year.
