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| M.N. Ray |
Kalimpong, April 9: The principal secretary of the Bengal panchayat and rural development department will hold a meeting with DGHC officials in Darjeeling tomorrow to find out ways and means to implement the national rural employment guarantee scheme (NREGS) in the hills.
The implementation of the project in the hills has become a problem because all the 112 gram panchayats here have been in a state of limbo for the last two years. The multi-crore central scheme, which envisages providing at least 100 days of employment to jobless people in rural areas, requires the involvement of panchayats, besides the state governments and NGOs.
The principal secretary, M.N. Ray, is optimistic that a mechanism could be evolved to work out the scheme. “The panchayat members may not be there, but the machinery exists in the hills,” Ray told The Telegraph here today. The notice for the implementation of the scheme in the hills was served on April 1 and according to Ray there is enough time to execute it. (A Central guideline states that the scheme must be implemented within six months of the issue of the notification).
Though the term of the panchayats came to an end two years ago, the pradhans are demanding that the NREGS be implemented through their office by giving the DGHC a miss.
“For this to happen, the government must either empower the present committees, or hold fresh elections,” said L.M. Lama, secretary of the Hill Gram Panchayat Action Committee.
Ray, however, said the council would have to be involved at some time or the other. On the holding of elections, he said his department was “willing to conduct the poll even tomorrow if such a directive came about”.
“It (holding of election) is a political decision. It should be clear once the Sixth Schedule comes into force,” Ray added.
When asked about the fate of the rural bodies when the hills get the special status, Ray said panchayats could still be retained. He, however, admitted that there are no panchayats in the autonomous council areas (set up under the Sixth Schedule) in the northeastern states.
