Panchayati Raj Minister Arun Kumar Sahoo on Tuesday said all gram panchayat would be reconstituted before the coming panchayat polls due in February 2017. The Minister said this in the State Assembly while replying to a question by Prafulla Samal and other members.
While Samal reminded that the BJD has promised to give gram panchayat status to a village of group of villages having 1,000 population, the Minister said, “We would implement our promise in a phased manner. The term of current panchayat bodies would expire in February 17. Panchayats would be reconstituted slowly as we have two years in hand,” the Minister said.
As per the Panchayati Raj Act 1985, a gram panchayat is formed of a village of group of villages having population between 2,000 and 10,000 and should have 11 to 25 wards. Now, the State has 6,210 gram panchayats formed on the basis of this Act in 2002. Earlier, the number of panchayats was increased from 4,409 to 5,263 in 1992, the Minister informed.
Responding to another question, the Minister said the State now has a total of 1,45,366 km of gram panchayat roads and 25,702 panchayat samiti roads. Members who put additional questions included Ranendra Pratap Swain, Pravat Ranjan Biswal and Surjya Narayan Patro.