The Team of senior officers led by Chief Secretary to Government, briefing the Hon’ble Chief Minister, made it very clear that, there is no alternate except appointing person incharges, in place of the village sarpanches whose term is coming to a close. They also informed the Chief Minister that the outgoing sarpanches, in accordance with the provision of the law, cannot be appointed as person incharges, and even the courts may not agree to this. The Officers concerned have undertaken an exercise for appointing person incharges in place of sarpanches whose term will be over on August 1, 2018. There are demands that the outgoing sarpanches should be appointed as person incharges. In this context Hon’ble Chief Minister held a review meeting in PragathiBhavan on Tuesday afternoon. Chief Secretary SK Joshi, Principal secretary to CM S Narsing Rao, Panchayat Raj Principal secretary Vikas Raj, Municipal Principal secretary Arvind Kumar, Panchayat Raj commissioner Neetu Prasad, Mission Bhagiratha Vice Chairman Vemula Prashanth Reddy and others participated.
The officers briefed the Chief Minister about the exercise being done regarding appointment of personal incharges. The officers also briefed the Hon’ble Chief Minister about the reasons for appointing officers as the person incharges in accordance with the law as detailed below.
Unlike never in the past, 4,383 New panchayats have come into existence. As per the promise made to the scheduled tribes, the GirijanTandas and the Adivasi Gudems have been converted into panchayats. In 1500 village panchayats only STs will become sarpanches. Creation of New panchayats has been done through an Act Passed in Assembly. The Act will come into force immediately after the term of present Gram Panchayats comes to an end. Accordingly, from August 2, 2018 new gram panchayats will come into existence. Quite for a long time the STs have been requesting that they shall be made sarpanches so that they would be able to govern their villages. If the present sarpanches continued after their term is over as person incharges, the village panchayats which are allotted for STs will not come into existence. This means there will not be any benefit to any schedule tribes.
The topography of the present village panchayats has been totally changed. There are 300 villages which have been converted either as municipalities or merged into one of the existing municipalities. Under any circumstances it is not possible to make the outgoing sarpanches as person incharges for the villages which either have become municipalities or merged into municipalities. Some of the hamlets have also become separate village panchayats. All these will henceforth be village panchayats with effect from August 2, 2018. There are hardly 5% of the Gram panchayats which will be continued as it is and they were in the past. Since the topography has been changed and since the present boundaries of the earlier village panchayats no more exists, the sarpanches cannot be made as person incharges.
The outgoing sarpanches have been elected for the existing gram panchayats and not for the panchayats that would come into effects after August 2, 2018. The topography of the panchayats for which they were elected and the topography of new panchayats is totally different. In case the outgoing sarpanch is made as person incharge it amounts to making them for the village with the earlier boundaries. As result either the village panchayats exclusively created for STs or the other new panchayats will not come into actual existence. This is against Act. If the Act passed in the Assembly is not implemented legal problems may crop up. If anyone approaches court then they may question the Government as to why the Act passed in the assembly is not implemented. The Government cannot go against the Act.
The Government decided that along with tandas and gudems, the new gram panchayats should come into existence, the new panchayats are to be formed and the new governance to begin in the villages. With this objective it preferred election ahead of schedule to the panchayat raj institutions. However due to court cases it has not become possible to conduct elections. Before the court pronounces its Judgment, it’s the responsibility of the Government to bring into effect the new panchayats as per the Act. In case outgoing sarpanches are appointed as person in chargers, it does not amount that the new panchayats have come into existence. This violates the Act.
In view of the above reasons the officers informed the Chief Minister that it is not possible to appoint outgoing sarpanches as person incharges. And hence officers will be appointed as person incharges and as per the Act the new panchayats will be brought into existence and that is the only alternative left with the government.
