60 percent of the state’s population lives in rural areas. But there is a huge lack of infrastructure and other facilities in the Gram Panchayats. 37 percent of the Panchayats do not have their own building. Not only this, not a single Gram Panchayat in the state has a computer. The situation of neighboring states is much better than the state. This has been revealed in the report of the Ministry of Panchayati Raj.
There are 13,235 Gram Panchayats in Punjab, which play an important role in rural development. They oversee essential services like drinking water, sanitation and infrastructure development. Along with this, the work of implementing important programs in the health, education and agriculture sectors is also the work of the Panchayats.
How can Panchayats work for the betterment of villages in the absence of facilities. According to the report, 4904 Panchayats in Punjab do not have Gram Panchayat buildings and only 8331 Panchayats are running with buildings.
This scheme was implemented by the Ministry of Panchayati Raj
The Ministry of Panchayati Raj implemented the National Gram Swaraj Abhiyan Scheme from 2018-19 to 2021-22 and implemented this scheme with some changes in 2022-23. Under the scheme, the ministry releases funds to the states and union territories to provide facilities in the panchayats, which includes building construction and arranging computers for the functioning of the panchayats.
So many panchayats of Punjab do not have computers
Under the scheme, a fund of Rs 58.48 crore has been released to the state by the Center from the year 2019 to 2023. Not a single panchayat out of 13,235 in Punjab has its own computer.
The ministry has emphasized that panchayats work as local governments, so it is the responsibility of the state governments to provide them basic facilities like buildings and computers. Hoshiarpur has the highest number of Panchayats in Punjab at 1405, while Gurdaspur is at second place with 1285 Panchayats.