Bidar: Bidar Member of Parliament Narsingrao Suryavanshi has criticised the State Government for "failing to empower Panchayati Raj institutions".

"The Government has only paid lip service to decentralisation. They speak of making the Panchayati Raj institutions the most powerful arm of the Government, but end up weakening them," Mr. Suryavanshi said here on Friday.

The MP was speaking to presspersons after chairing a meeting of the vigilance and monitoring committee of the Union Ministry of Rural Development's programmes in the district.

He said the State Government retained the decision to clear any project that involved an expenditure of Rs. 5 lakh or more. The zilla panchayat executive engineer had powers only to take up work of Rs. 1 lakh. The Superintending Engineer could clear projects with an expenditure of up to Rs. 2 lakh. The Chief Engineer for north Karnataka, whose headquarters was in Dharwad, could clear projects involving an expenditure of up to Rs. 5 lakh.

This meant that a zilla panchayat could not build even 1 km of road. It would cost Rs. 20 lakh to build 1 km of road and even the Chief Engineer had no powers to clear such a proposal, he said.

The Bidar City Municipal Council (CMC) Commissioner could clear projects with an expenditure of up to Rs. 50 lakh. The CMC general body could clear projects with an expenditure of up to Rs. 1 crore. Why was the State Government discriminating against rural self-governments? he asked.

He said decentralisation was introduced to speed up development.

If any project proposal was forwarded to the State Government, it took at least a year to process it. That was the reason why most of the projects were delayed, he said.

Mr. Suryavanshi took objection to the zilla panchayat members tolerating the delay in the implementation of the projects. He criticised the State Government for lacking control over the Bidar Zilla Panchayat.

He and other members of the committee said they were "dissatisfied" with the zilla panchayat's pace of implementation of 11 programmes of the Centre.

Shankar Doddi, a member of the committee, said the officials behaved as if they had no one to control them. If they were not disciplined, the district would remain backward forever.

Special schemes

Basavaraj Bulla, also a member of the committee, regretted that although the Centre sanctioned special schemes such as the Rashtriya Sama Vikas Yojana and the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, the zilla panchayat had failed to utilise them.

"Some projects under the Prime Minister's Gram Sadak Yojana are pending for three years. Money for most of the projects is in the bank, but neither the members nor the officials are interested in spending it for development," he alleged.

Deputy Commissioner and Chief Executive Officer of Bidar Zilla Panchayat Munish Moudgil, who is the member-secretary of the committee, said no taluk panchayat executive officer monitored the working of gram panchayats.

They would have to visit at least 20 houses built under the government housing schemes. Otherwise, they would not be allowed to draw their salary, he said.

Zilla panchayat president Anil Bhusare said the zilla panchayat could not be blamed for the slow pace of development.

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