LF FOR CHANGES IN BENGAL RURAL SCENE…

People-Oriented Gram Unnayan Samities Set Up In Bengal Villages

B Prasant

THE Bengal Left Front has called upon the state LF government to institute statutory bodies at the level of the mass-participated Gram Sansads to involve more and more of the rural people in the process of plan formulation and plan implementation. This demand is in keeping with the programme for rural development announced in the recent Panchayat poll manifesto of the Bengal Left Front.

The Bengal Left Front has resolved the Panchayat Act must be suitably modified, to include these statutory bodies, to be called Gram Unnayan Samity, (GUS) or rural development committees, at the Gram Sansad level.  The Samity would work in tandem with, and not as an alternative to, the elected Panchayat bodies, said Anil Biswas, speaking to INN/PD at the Muzaffar Ahmad Bhavan.  Biswas also stressed on the fact the principal aim of the setting of the Gram Unnayan Samity was to involve more and more of the rural masses in the process of rural development.

GRAM UNNAYAN SAMITY

As nominated bodies, the Gram Unnayan Samity will consist of representatives of the political parties, mass organisations, and voluntary organisations of the concerned Gram Sansad’s areas.  Noted personalities of the area, too, would be inducted into the Samity.

The Bengal Left Front has also decided to call for the setting up of various permanent upa-samities (sub-committees) at the Gram Panchayat level as well.  These committees already function at the levels of the Zilla Parishad and the Panchayat Samity. These units would look after issues concerning mass health, welfare of women and children, and education.  Generally, a wider effort would be initiated at the three levels of the Panchayat system for asset creation and resource mobilisation.

Accordingly, and following the resolve by the Bengal Left Front, the Bengal legislative assembly recently passed an amendment to the Panchayat Act that would pave the way for the setting up of the Gram Unnayan Samity (GUS) at the level of the Gram Panchayats.  The GUS would ensure all the way that the village-level planning is brought about with the aim of fulfilling the common will of the villagers.  It would also make certain that the appropriate social groups and individuals were benefited by the various projects that would be undertaken in the time to come.

The GUS would create a compulsion on the Gram Panchayats to draw up and implement pro-people plans at the level of the villages. 

OTHER AMENDMENTS

The amended Panchayat Act also calls for different upa-samities for such sectors as mass health, industry, education, women and child development, and education.  The upa-samities will ensure that power is not concentrated solely in the hands of the Pradhan of the Gram Panchayat.

In the amended Panchayat Act, provisos have been made for the implementation of sansads (councils) at the levels of both the Panchayat Samity and the Zilla Parishad.  At present, such sansads exist at the level of the Gram Panchayat alone.

In the Block Sansad, all the members of the Panchayat Samity and those of the Gram Panchayats in the Panchayat Samity area, would function as members.  Similarly, all the members of the Zilla Parishad plus the Sabhapatis, Sahakari-sabhapatis, and Karmadhaykhshas of the Panchayat Samities of the district as well as the Pradhans of the Gram Panchayats shall be members of the Zillah Sansads.  These new bodies shall function like the Gram Sansads do and involve more and more people of the rural areas into the process of rural development under the leadership of the Panchayat bodies. The Panchayat Samity would place its financial statement with the Block Sansad while the Zilla Parishad would do the same with the Zilla Sansad.

Elsewhere, according to figures released by the land and land reforms department of the Bengal Left Front government, more than 15 thousand acre of land vested in the government could be redistributed among the rural poor and the landless over the past one year.  64 thousand sharecroppers have received patta (land title) rights.  Of the 48 per cent are members of various Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.  At present, 27 lakh small farmers hold patta rights over 10.8-lakh acre of agricultural and homestead land.  15 lakh sharecroppers have been regularised as bargadars (sharecroppers) under the Land and Land Reforms Act.