Orientation Workshop With Newly Elected Zila Pramukhs

Chief Minister Smt. Vasundhara Raje has called upon the newly elected Zila Pramukhs that they should engage with the public for setting agenda for development. She said that the representatives should win public trust through good work and attain new heights.

Smt. Raje was addressing the inauguration session of the two-day orientation workshop for newly elected Zila Pramukh. The CM said that the officers and public representatives should coordinate amongst themselves, consider the public at the centre and resolve grievances at the local level, so that the development works were completed on the spot and they were not needed to run upto the capital for the same. Expressing delight on young and educated Zila Pramukhs in the state, she said that these rural public representatives should be agents of change.

The CM said that development of rural areas was her government’s priority and in the first year itself kept budget provisions of 12,091 crore rupees for this. In the second year, budget worth 11,051 crores was kept for this, while the previous government had provisions of merely 1,703 and 1,332 crore rupees for the first two years for this.

Smt. Raje said that this year the Panchayati Raj Institutions would be awarded at the state-level for their performance. Basis of evaluation for this would be increased income, pace of development and attempts to eradicate social evils. She directed the Zila Pramukhs to get training about Maharashtra Model of watershed development and said that the watershed projects could change the face of development in the rural areas.

The Chief Minister said that with convergence of Mahatma Gandhi NREGS, warehouses would be developed at all Gram Panchayat headquarters for storage of grains. Rajasthan would be the first state to construct such 10,000 warehouses of 100 Metric Tonnes capacity each by spending 2,500 crore rupees. Farmers would be directly benefited by these warehouses, she said.

Addressing the women public representatives, Smt. Raje said that the woman Zila Pramukh or Sarpanch should dispose off their respective duties on their own and should keep their husband away from the official files and work. She suggested the public representatives to conduct regular field visits and not have any greed of red beacon, security guard or other symbol of power. She said that she herself did not use a red beaconed vehicle. Every single pie the Panchayati Raj Institutes received, should be spent on development and public interest, the CM said.

Minister of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Shri Surendra Goyal called upon the Zila Pramukhs to play important role in achieving the goal of making Rajasthan an Open Defecation Free (ODF) state by year 2018. He said that of the total 1 crore 15 lakh families in the state, 84 lakh were not having toilet facility. Of these, 12 lakh families had been given this facility and for rest 72 lakh families toilets would be constructed in next three years, he said. After that, Rajasthan would be the third ODF state in the country after Sikkim and Himachal Pradesh, the Minister added.

Director General of Indira Gandhi Panchayati Raj Sansthan Shri Rajeshwar Singh, Principal RD & PR Shri Shreemat Pandey, Secretary Shri Rajiv Thakur, Commissioner MGNREGS Shri Rohit Kumar, other senior officers were also present in the workshop.

Jaipur, July 27, 2015