JP all praise for Gram Jyothi

Hyderabad: Lok Satta founder-president Jayaprakash Narayan here on Wednesday hailed the TRS government’s “Grama Jyothy” scheme and described it as a right step towards empowering the local governments.

• Lok Satta leader feels it will lead to new era of local government
• He urges political parties to set aside their differences and support the programme

In a statement here on Wednesday, Jayaprakash Narayan stated that Lok Satta had been demanding allocation of Rs 1,000 crore every year for strengthening the village panchayats. “The Telangana State government has allocated Rs.25,000 crore for the coming five years on the basis of population,” he said.

He said the funds from Centre had been increased as per 14th Finance Commission. It should be translated into increase flow of funds to local governments. “We are happy that the KCR government has taken an initiative in this regard,” he said. He felt that the democracy would flourish only when third local governments were strong.

Jayaprakash Narayan made three important suggestions to achieve goal of “Grama Jyothy” scheme. They are: Firstly, the government has to set up panchayat clusters by providing office, computer, high school and required staff in every gram panchayat.

Secondly, the government has to include the panchayats as a group to make them cluster because there is no use in case the panchayats were small. The government has to allot Rs 1,000 to 1,500 crore to every panchayat and municipality to create local governance. Thirdly, the government should set up ward committees to spend the money.

The government should set up Ombudsmen system at district level to supervise the use of funds and to initiate stringent action in case there were irregularities and corruption, he said. He urged all political parties to set aside their differences and support the initiative taken by the TRS government.