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Cooch Behar district has 128 nos. Gram Panchayats, 12 nos. of Panchayat Samities and
one Zilla Parishad. All these as institutions of local self Govt. are
functioning successfully in the district as per provision of the West
Bengal Panchayat Act, 1975 under the care, guidance and assistance of
the P&RD Department.
The
provisions with regard to holding of statutory meetings like Gram
Sansad and Gram Sabhas are being held on regular basis on stipulated months of
the year. The participations of the people in these meetings have
increased over the years. At the block level and the district level the Block
Samsad and Zilla Samsad meetings are being held and monitored regularly by
P&RD Deptt.
It is a fact that the people of this district have
shown enough political maturity by their massive participation in the
periodic Panchayat Election. They actively participate in Gram Samsad
meetings and during the formation of Gram
Unnaya Samities. Yet it is also another fact that very often our
Panchayat Samities and more so our Gram Panchayat have shown the
tendency to function as a one man show either by the Sabhapati
or the Pradhan. Participation in collective decision making is slow and
wanting. The imagination of the individual Panchayat often never goes
behind the jurisdiction of his/her constituency. Across GPs even across
Samsad decisions not to speak of across the blocks schemes are hardly
considered and proposed for implementation. Many members still perceives
the GP & PS offices as mere construction boards for roads, drains
and nalas. Social sector like health and education are still to occupy
in the agenda list of the many Panchayats. Hence in the first place one
of the important interventions of the district has been to
regularly train the Panchayat functionaries for skill and capacity building for better leadership.
Secondly, adequate infrastructural
and manpower support has
been given to all the official establishments of Gram
Panchayats, Panchayat
Samities and the Zilla
Parishad. All have pucca buildings, adequate furniture and official
equipments including computers, fax machines and even broad band
internet connectivity have been allowed up to the GP level. All are well
connected and large number of officials and support group staff have
been provided.
Thirdly, one of the important achievements in the
instructional development has been that all the Gram Panchayats,
Panchayat Samities and including the Zilla Parishad have its approved Bylaws
as per provision of the Panchayat Act. This has greatly helped the
mobilization of revenue and resources by the Panchayat bodies. Asset
creation and maintenance of the institutions have improved with these
resources.
Fourthly, the accounts of the Zilla Parishad and all the 12
Panchayat Samities have been fully computerized through the IFMS
(Integrated Financial Management System). Likewise as many as 55
nos. of Gram Panchayats have computerized their accounts under the GPMS scheme of P & RD Deptt. All these have helped effective
fund utilization, better financial management and ensured transparency
in financial transaction to a large extent.
Fifthly, the statutory audits
both internal and external of the accounts of these institutions are
taking place regularly in the district in spite of limited number of
audit officers for internal audits. So far no case of any serious
irregularities or misappropriation of Govt. money has come to surface in
the reports of these statutory audits.
Sixthly, efforts have been made to achieve the
principle of collective responsibility in the functioning of these
Panchayat bodies. For this purpose regular meeting of the various
Sthayee Samities at the Panchayat Simiti and Zilla Parishad level has
been made mandatory and supervised by the district authorities
vigorously. Budgets are to be made Sthayee
Samiti wise on mandatory basis.
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