Government gets cracking on creation of 32 ZPs

Hyderabad: Almost three years after the reorganisation of districts, the government has begun the exercise for creation of 32 Zilla Parishads from the present 9. Panchayat Raj department officials have already been instructed to the formation of the Zilla Parishads to the 32 districts (including new and old) so that elections could be conducted to them in June or July of this year.

The department forwarded the proposals to the government to give notification forming the Zilla Parishads for the 23 districts. Currently, there are nine ZPs in the State. With the formation of Zilla Parishads to the new districts, the total number of ZPs would go up to 32. Though the State government has formed 31 districts in the place of 10 old districts two years ago,Zilla Parishads had not been formed due to the rules in establishing ZPs.

The area of the ZPs should not be altered once electionsare conducted. With this, the government has decided to wait till the end of the term of the present nine ZPs. Recently the government has also formed two more districts taking the total number of districts to 33. However, Hyderabad district would not have a ZP and with this ZPs would be in place for 32 districts.

Panchayat Raj Deputy Commissioner K Sudhakar told The Hans India that they have sent proposals for the establishment of ZPs to 23 districts. He said that 535 Zilla Parishad Territorial Constituency members would elect 32 Zilla Parishad chairpersons. He said that each rural mandal would have one ZPTC and there are 535 such mandals. The government has formed 97 new mandals over the previous 438 rural mandals.

Sudhakar informed that each ZP would have about 17 ZPTCs on the average. The term of the present nine ZPs would end by July and elections to form the new bodies should be conducted by that time. He said that the State Election Commission has initiated the process of preparing the voter list of the all the 32 districts. Officials of Panchayat Raj said that the number of Zilla Parishads have been raised substantially for administrative convenience. ZPs with small area could address the issues of the rural areas effectively.

The Zilla Parishads have about 25 functions and responsibilities as per the Panchayat Raj Act, 2018. They include examination and approval of the budgets of Mandal Praja Parishads, distribution of funds allotted to the district by the Central or State Government among the MPPs. In addition, co-ordination and consolidation of the plans prepared in respect of the mandals in the district and prepare plans in respect of the entire district, approval and allotment of funds are also included in their responsibilities.

They also have the duty of supervision on the works of mandallabour budgets under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, and securing the execution of plans, projects, schemes or other works either solely relating to the individual mandal or common to two or more in the district.

Supervision of the activities of the MPPs and Gram Panchayats in the district, act as District Board, advising government on all matters relating to development activities and service utilities, allocation of work among Gram Panchayats and MPPs, on matters concerning the implementation of any statutory or executive order specially referred by the Government to the ZillaPraja Parishad and others.