laxmi Krishani (39), tribal sarpanch of Rajamunda gram panchayat under lahunipada block in Sundargarh district, has a dream to make her panchayat a model where people will have drinking water, cement concrete roads, street lights and sanitation facilities as a part of development. But she knew only the Government schemes cannot help her to achieve this; so she decided to increase panchayat’s own fund to meet the demand. Today, her panchayat’s own source revenue has touched nearly Rs 20 lakh.
“It was not easy for me to achieve the target. In my panchayat, we have a weekly cattle market which I have given on lease for one year for Rs 15 lakh. But the major problem is when I asked the shop keepers of another market complex to give tax they did not agree to do it. Being a woman sarpanch I had to face a lot of difficulties to settle the matter. I discussed with the Sub-Collector and a notice was issued to all the shop keepers. They were given a tentative time to submit their tax for the year 2014-15, lest stringent action should be taken against them. Surprisingly, we received nearly Rs 2lakh as tax for our panchayat’s own source,” says laxmi with confidence.
Besides, her panchayat received nearly Rs 40,000 from other resources like lease of ponds and water tax. Her panchayat received nearly Rs 1 lakh as external income from the Government of Odisha. “If you receive a good amount as panchayat’s own sources, you can spend the amount on various development works, which we did in our Rajamunda panchayat. Apart from infrastructure development of weekly market, we have constructed a new market complex for the villagers to run small businesses. But construction of cement concrete roads in small villages was a great satisfaction for me. The villagers were very happy when we constructed the road by spending money from panchayat’s own source and now, they will have no problem for communication during rainy season,” said laxmi.
Juliani Kandi, sarpanch of lahunipada gram panchayat in Sundergarh district feels the same like her counterpart laxmi. Before being the sarpanch, Juliani was running a tailor shop near panchayat office and she witnessed the plight of her villagers very closely. “When the seat was reserved for women, I decided to contest and serve for my panchayat. But my husband and family members did not support me. So I convinced the villagers to support me for the election. When I won the election, I decided to increase panchayat’s own source for the development work,” said Juliani. Till date her panchayat’s own source has achieved a target of Rs 11 lakh. Apart from expenditure on renovation, improvement and maintenance of weekly ‘haat’, she has constructed three cement concrete roads, cold drinking water facility at bus stop, renovation of public toilet and bathing ghat for women on the bank of village ponds.
District Panchayat Officer Guruva Singh says, “Both the panchayats are in the semi-township area, but these women sarpanchs have taken a good effort to raise their own funds. They know only panchayat’s own source will give them a free hand to invest in development work, which will take a lot of time through implementation of Government schemes”.
Earlier finance commission grants were released as tied up resources to the panchayats and the panchayats having no income of their own. They were not also in a position for upkeep, maintain and renovation of the capital asserts lying with them like-ponds, orchards and market complex.
Talking about panchayat’s own source, Additional Secretary, Planning and Coordination department PK Biswal expresses, “We have made a special recommendation for giving a one-time grant of Rs 10 lakh to each gram panchayat during next 5 years, for creation of revenue generating capital assert. With this they can create fish ponds, orchards, pindis for weekly haat and new market complex.” It was observed the total income of 6,209 panchayats in the State was just Rs 1 crore per annum, while some panchayats had meager or nil income. “We have borrowed the idea from other States as to how they have increased their own source revenue; now we are working on it. Once they will increase their own source revenue, it will be invested on basic services of panchayats like – ponds, orchards, kalyan mandap, play ground, graveyard etc,” says Panchayatiraj department Joint Secretary Satya Narayan Dash.
The devolution funds will be un-tied in nature so that the panchayats will have the flexibility of utilization of money as per their felt needs. Even the finance commission grants will be un-tied in nature.
The smallest gram panchayat in the State will get about Rs 20 lakh un-tied fund every year. This is an opportunity and challenge for the panchayats in the sense that they will get substantial money to spend but they lack the capacity to spend the amount in a proper manner, Biswal points out.
The panchayats suffer from lack of basic infrastructure for planning and budgeting in a systematic manner, because of lack of required manpower and expertise. Therefore, the State Government should to take up capacity building of the panchayats in a big way so that they would be able to prepare gram panchayats level plans and spend the amount in a planned way. Otherwise, the amount will be unutilized and lie in the banks, opines an observer.
Ganjam’s Dhunkapada panchayat sarapanch Arati Devi says, “Sometimes our hands are tied because of shortage of panchayats’ own source of revenue. This decision of providing funds to the panchayats will give us strength to spend on development work and to meet immediate requirement during natural disasters and house burning. We have various development plans to meet but due to fund crunch, we are unable to fulfill the need and make the sustainability of panchayats own sourse revenue”.
(The article is a part of Government of India-UNDP media fellowships on decentralized planning-2015)
