Page 5 - MGMG July to December 2019 Special Issue

District wrote to the Prime Minister about this programme following which the Prime Minister made a
mention of it in his Mann ki Baat Programme calling it a „festival of development, public participation
and public awareness?.

Encouraged by the success of the first edition of the programme, the government decided to embark on
its second phase. Like the first phase, here too nearly 5000 officers at all levels will visit each
Panchayat, one officer per Panchayat and stay there for two days and a night. The officers will interact
with the people and discuss the various developmental programmes and also how they can be made
more effective. The present version of the programme will be even more intense than the first. It will
have four specific objectives a) to follow up the progress achieved during the first Back to Village
Programme b) to support and energise the newly established Panchayats c) to look at the functioning of
the various flagship programmes and individual beneficiary oriented schemes and learn more how to
make them more effective, d) to study how and through what interventions, the National goal of
doubling farmers? income by 2022 could be achieved.

B2V Programme of Jammu & Kashmir is unique in many ways. Panchayat elections for nearly 4500
Panchayat Halqas in Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh were successfully conducted last year. Despite many
fears and apprehensions and a number of boycott calls by militant elements, the elections were
peacefully concluded and Panchayats were constituted. This was followed by elections to the second tier
of the local self-governing bodies- the Block Development councils.

These elections too were successfully concluded and the BDCs have been constituted. The
administration too moved in swiftly to empower the newly constituted Panchayats- over Rs 1000 crores
have already been devolved to the Panchayats while another Rs. 700 crores are in the pipeline. In
addition, functions like nutrition of ICDS centres, Mid-Day Meals and salaries of certain functionaries
have also been formally devolved to the Panchayats. In this background, one of the primary objectives
of the B2V2 will be to help institutionalise and energise the functioning of Panchayats and to assist them
wherever they face any impediments in using the funds devolved for development based on local
priorities.

In fact the questionnaire to be filled in by the visiting officer specifically addresses issues like
impediment faced by Panchayats, level of cooperation (or otherwise) received from the departments and
the administration, office and procedural delays. In each case, the clear effort is to pinpoint the

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