Gram Panchayats are in the news all over Karnataka because of the recent move of the Government to withdraw the powers of the Gram Panchayats in implementing the Ashraya Yojana.

Thanks to the Governor of Karnataka who has returned the draft bill to amend the provisions of the Karnataka Panchayat Act 1993 under which the Gram Panchayats were empowered to select beneficiaries and provide Ashraya houses costing Rs 30,000 each.

The amendment seeks to constitute a committee under the chairmanship of the concerned MLA to select beneficiaries and sanction the amount to build Ashraya house if the Gram Sabha or the Gram Panchayat fail to discharge their assigned duties.

While returning the draft amendment bill the Governor observed, “Who will decide that the Panchayat has failed to discharge its duties and who will constitute the Committee? Why select only housing schemes? What about the other poverty alleviation and social justice schemes, the Indira Awas Housing and Dr Ambedkar Housing schemes that are Centrally-sponsored?”

While expressing high regard for MLAs/MLCs, the Governor further asked the “honourable members to reconsider in their wisdom about the need for the amendment, its propriety, timeliness and relevance in view of the 73rd Constitutional mandate and the likely long term impact the amendment may have on the future of Panchayati Raj in Karnataka.”

On one fine rainy day, I drove unannounced to the Aldur Gram Panchayat, trapped in the Western Ghats on the way to Sringeri and called Mr Krishne Gowda, the most popular vice-president  of the Aldur Gram Panchayat in Chikmagalore District.

He asked me to visit the Gram Panchayat Office which is a mini Vidhan Soudha surrounded by hordes of saree clad women, widows seeking pension, adults worrying about their ration card entitlements and shop keepers queuing up for payment of shop licence fee and so on.

When I told Mr Gowda about the State-wide agitation of the Gram Panchayats against the withdrawal of powers of Gram Panchayats for releasing funds for the Ashraya scheme, he smiled and first introduced me to the Gram Panchayat President Geeta Manjunath and other members, including computer assistant Prema Girish. He then asked Prema to show me the files of the beneficiaries of the Ashraya Scheme.

Aldur Gram Panchayat, with just three villages, has a population of about 12,000. People here are better educated and ‘rights’-conscious.

There are three types of housing programmes in this panchayat as in others - Dr Ambedkar Yojana, Indira Awas Yojana  and the much publicised Ashraya Yojana, which is totally funded by the Karnataka Government.  While the first two are Centrally-funded and the amount a beneficiary gets is Rs 25,000, under the Ashraya scheme one gets Rs 30,000.

Sitting before the computer, I was virtually entering the Ashraya houses, finding out the name of the beneficiary, his/her photo, size of the house built, nature of the toilet provided, kitchen size, etc. So far, 120 beneficiaries have been registered to get Ashraya houses by signing the stamp-free registration in the Sub Registrar’s office.

I asked Geeta to show me some randomly selected files of Ashraya beneficiaries and found the entire process to be totally systematic and transparent. It had the photos of beneficiaries and details of installments released as the construction of the house proceeded. Under Ashraya, six installments of Rs 5,000 are released and the photo of the construction stage is captured.

Eye witness

After browsing through the files, we went to see the house of Byramma, one of the beneficiaries of the Ashraya scheme. Byramma was cooking and I asked her how she felt about her new Ashraya house. She simply said that it was a ‘cultural’ shift from her grass hut to the cement house! She also said that she was not used to a clean toilet earlier and that she was now enjoying it!

Then we moved on to another Ashraya house, away from the village, in the slopes of the beautiful Western Ghats where the toilets were incomplete. Ashraya, Indira Awas and Ambedkar are just brands, but the leadership of Aldur Gram Panchayat members have made them to be great shelters for the poor.

Back at the panchayat office, I once again saw many programme details on the computer, including the videographic Gram Sabha meetings and how decisions are made openly.

Panchayat secretary Prakash, a BCom graduate and a diploma holder in Panchayat Governance from Mysore University, said software Asti 2.0, developed by the Panchayat Raj Department, was a non-starter since it had no links with the other items. For example, it was capturing only expenditure and not receipts!

As I was about to leave, a letter from Zilla Panchayat arrived, asking the Aldur Panchayat to return the Suvarna Gram amount of Rs 45 lakh to the Karnataka Land Army Corporation. Come elections, the present government will dig its own grave, was the whisper in Aldur.