Extending an olive branch to agitating sarpanches who are protesting against e-panchayat system, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar lal has invited them for holding talks on Wednesday.
“All the sarpnaches, who are protesting against e-panchayat have been invited for a dialogue on April 4 in Panchayat Bhawan at Chandigarh. All their problems would be heard and redressed,” said the Chief Minister while interacting with mediapersons in Sonipat on Tuesday.
Earlier in the day, the sarpanches from around 40 villages in Sonipat, while holding black flags had protested against implementation of e-panchayat. The Chief Minister was in Sonipat on Tuesday to inaugurate and laid foundation stones of various projects.
The sarpanches were detained by the State police.
Notably, many sarpanches and gram sachivs during the past few days have organised demonstrations against the e-panchayat system at many places in Haryana. The demands of the protesters include withdrawal of the e-panchayat system with immediate effect, execution of the Haryana Panchayati Raj Act, 1994, remuneration for gram sachivs on a par with patwaris and pension for gram sarpanches.
On the other hand, Haryana Government has been maintaining that the implementation of the e-panchayat project would not only increase transparency, but would also help check corruption and make people repose greater faith in the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) in the State.
To pacify the agitating sarpanches, the State Government has also announced that if any gram panchayat does not want to switch over to e-panchayat, a resolution of the gram panchayat fully endorsed by the gram sabha should be submitted in this regard.
However, the financial powers for such gram panchayats will be kept at Rs 10 lakh instead of recent enhanced amount of Rs 20 lakh.
last week, thousands of sarpanches and panchayat members had gathered in Panchkula to protest against the implementation of e-panchayat system. A delegation of PRIs had also met the Chief Minister Manohar lal at his residence here to raise their demands.
The meeting, however, did not end on a positive note with the PRIs being allegedly thrown out following their protest and sloganeering at CM’s residence.
The Chief Minister had expressed displeasure over their protest and the very next day, the government had suspended nine gram sachivs for their protest.
At present, 3638 gram panchayats out of 6204 in the state are onboard in e-panchayat and are at different stages of data entry and progress.