240 panchayats out of the 2.5 lakh panchayats across the country were presented with the National Panchayat Awards 2019 today by Narendra Singh Tomar, Union Minister for Panchayati Raj in New Delhi.
While congratulating the winners, Narendra Singh Tomar asked all the panchayats to move ahead for making a new India. “All the Gram Panchayats and Sarpanchs should fully utilise the powers given to them and should formulate the Development Plans for their panchayats at the earliest to effectively implement the Government programs,” said Tomar.
Tomar asked every elected representative to be proud of the responsibility given to them by the voters. He also called upon all the panchayat representatives awardees to become a role model and source of motivation to all the panchayats across the country to learn from for betterment.
The Panchayati Raj Ministers from Assam, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu along with representatives of Panchayati Raj Institutions in the country were also present at the award ceremony.
Panchayats in the ‘Best Performing’ category were chosen based on various indicators. The incentivisation in this way instills motivation in the Panchayati representatives who constantly make efforts at creating models for Gram Sabhas and other Panchayats to take a cue from. They also focus on encouraging overall performance of the Panchayats in turn creating an ecosystem for good governance at the local level.
The Panchayats were conferred with Deen Dayal Upadhyay Panchayat Sashaktikaran Puraskar for best performing panchayats in Sanitation, serving marginalised section of society, civic services, e-governance, etc, Nanaji Deshmukh Rashtriya Gaurav Gram Sabha Puraskar for outstanding contribution towards socio-economic development involving Gram Sabhas, Gram Panchayat Development Plan for best performing Gram Panchayats, Child-friendly Gram Panchayat Award (one Gram Panchayat in each state/UT) for implementing child-friendly practices, e-Panchayat Puraskar for making use of Information and Communication Technology for better efficiency, accountability and transparency in their functioning.
Tomar also launched a Spatial Planning Application called ‘Gram Manchitra’. This app is a decision support system for the panchayats that works on Geo Spatial technology. With this app, the Panchayats can utilise to develop, plan and monitor development activities real time basis.