Panchayats can borrow money to feed poor: Amritsar DDPO

Charanjit Singh Teja

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, April 4

Though the Rural Development and Panchayats Department of the state government issued a notification, asking village panchayats to withdraw funds to feed the needy, sarpanches of most villages said they did not have any money in their panchayat accounts.

Sarpanches of villages are in trouble as most of the panchayats have already spent funds on village development projects. The panchayats have government grants but they are not allowed to use these grants for this purpose.

Villagers are suspecting the integrity of sarpanches as they have heard the news that government has allowed the sarpanches and the panchayats to spend Rs 5,000 daily and up to the maximum of Rs 50,000.

They have demanded that panchayats should be allowed to use the amount from the government grants.

Vadala village sarpanch Daljit Singh, Gurbax Singh of Jalal Usman village and Tarsem Singh Laddu of Fatehpur Rajputan village has narrated the same story.

Gurpreet Singh Gill, District Development and Panchayat Officer (DDPO), said, “The state government has ordered that sarpanches can spend Rs 5,000 per day out of the village panchayat fund to make arrangements for feeding poor. Most of the villages have sufficient amount in their panchayat funds. I have issued the direction to all block officers to convey the sarpanches that they can pass a resolution to borrow the money from any individual in the village. The gram panchayat will return the money by leasing out the land or by selling trees or by any other source of revenue.”

The DDPO asked the sarpanches to pass the resolution to borrow money and keep the proper record with signatures of the person who provide them money without interest.