Panchayats – the hidden lever of accelerated holistic development

I grew up with the assumption that ‘Panchayat’ consists of 5 ‘Panchs’ and 1 ‘Sarpanch’. Their function is linked more with judicial case resolution of the villages.

I learnt about the real purpose of a Panchayat in 2016 after studying the constitution. A Panchayat is equivalent to a local governance body as per all other countries. There are more than 900 million people who come under its governance and thus it holds a key for holistic development of a country. It consists of 11 to 17 wards members.

1. A ward member is the elected member for 100 to 500 families. He is responsible for developments at the smallest unit levels.
2. Sarpanch is also known as the President of the Panchayat in a few states like Kerala.
3. A Panchayat is responsible for preparing its development plan and they have to submit it in the Panchayat portal. The Panchayat gets a direct funding as per development plans submitted to their accounts.
4. A Panchayat also has the power to levy local taxes or sell forest produce in tribal areas to generate their own sources of revenues. The larger Panchayats near the cities get housing society local taxes as well as professional taxes. They are substantially richer Panchayats compared to remote Panchayats.
5. National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj (NIRDPR) is a central body for the capability building of Panchayats.
6. Mission Samriddhi has launched the ‘India Panchayat Forum’ to work on development at grass root level.
7. CDP – Cluster Development Program designed by MS has 7 frames for the development of Panchayats.
– D1 – Personal Development (Leadership development, Self-belief, Visualisation)
– D2 – Social Development (Education, Health, Infrastructure, Social Justice, Equality)
– D3 – Economic Development (Agricultural, Allied services, SHG, FPOs, Financial and Digital literacy etc)
– D4 – Ecological Development (Water, Soil, Forest)
– D5 – Gram Panchayat Development Plans (GPDP) education and planning including low cost/no cost plans
– D6 – Monitoring and Governance
– D7 – Stakeholder management
8. Mission Samriddhi works with sectoral experts as well as Development Accelerators (NGOs, Corporates and Governments) to drive CDP at various district levels. The fellows on-ground facilitate continuous education and nudging at the Panchayat level.

Today is National Panchayat Day. I invite few corporates along with their employees to celebrate, connect and catalyse Panchayats. You can write to me or Ram at Ram.Pappu@intellectdesign.com

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April 12, 2022

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Author
Arun Jain