Local bodies at loggerheads

Karimnagar: With the Central government granting funds directly to the village panchayats, the Zilla Parishad Territorial Constituency members and Mandal Parishad presidents are angry at gram panchayats for utilising the entire fund. Earlier, the Centre used to allocate 20 per cent funds each to Zilla Parishad and Mandal Parishad and the remaining 60 percent were allocated to gram panchayats.

Putting aside the old practice, the Union government has directly released 14th Finance funds to gram panchayats to develop villages on all fronts. With this, the ZPTCs and MPPs have lost their rights on Central funds allocated for the development of the rural areas. Enraged over the Centre’s decision, ZPTCs and MPPs registered their protest by boycotting recent Zilla Parishad general body meeting.

Instead, they sat in ZP Chairperson Tula Uma’s office. They withdrew their protest after ZP Chairperson assured them that the problem would be taken to the notice of the government. On the other hand, the rift between sarpanches, ZPTCs and MPPs came to the fore with the closure of 14 Comprehensive Protected Water Supply (CPWS) schemes which were supplying drinking water to 150 villages in the district.

The contractors, who were implementing the schemes, have closed the schemes demanding that the pending bills be cleared. Power supply was also snapped as the pending bills were not yet cleared. Meanwhile, as the water bodies withered away following the prolonged dry spell, people of 150 villages are facing severe drinking water troubles due to the closure of CPWS schemes.

While ZPTCs and MPPs blamed sarpanches for not paying power bills and bills to contractors, sarpanches made it clear that it was the responsibility of the State government to run the schemes. Though the district administration had issued instructions to the panchayats to clear the pending bills, sarpanches didn’t bother about water schemes.

The District Collector also instructed the panchayat secretaries through District Panchayat Officer to clear at least 30 percent power bills. Speaking to the Hans India, Sarpanches Sangham district president Anthati Annayya Goud informed that it was the responsibility of the Rural Water Supply department to implement drinking water schemes.

“Where is the need for us to clear pending bills,” he asked and alleged that the district administration was trying to pull their funds and divert them to other works. Whenever 14th Finance funds were released, the district administration has exerted pressure on panchayats, he informed and added that earlier governments never asked panchayats to pay power bills. Only major panchayats used to pay power bills, he said.