Panchayat development index to be prepared for rural growth: Govt

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Chandigarh, November 6

Haryana Chief Secretary Sanjeev Kaushal today said the Development and Panchayats Department would prepare a panchayat development index (PDI) to assess the holistic development performance and progress of rural local bodies.

The index will also take into account socio-economic indicators to gauge the well-being and development status of the local communities within the jurisdiction of panchayats.

Presiding over a meeting here today to discuss the panchayat development index, Kaushal emphasised on the importance of data collection for 57 services across 12 departments.

Based on the data, the index will be formulated, considering social and economic parameters and the development status of the local community.

It will encompass a range of thematic and sub-thematic indices, including electricity, water, roads, sanitation infrastructure, health and education services, institutions, economic and social indices, literacy and poverty rates, governance and administration, environmental sustainability and more.

Kaushal explained that the development index aimed at identifying disparities in rural communities, assessed the progress of sustainable development goals and informed policies for the betterment of rural lives.

The focus will be on fostering poverty-free and livelihood villages, developing healthy villages, establishing child-friendly panchayats, ensuring adequate water supply, promoting clean and green panchayats, creating self-reliant panchayats with essential infrastructure, fostering social justice and safe panchayats, advancing overall development with good governance and women-friendly panchayats.

To achieve these goals, State Steering Committee and District and Block Steering and Verification Committees have been constituted. These committees will oversee the preparation of quality data by grading the panchayats and formulating and reviewing plans at the panchayat level. This will facilitate the creation of a data report card for each panchayat.

The panchayat-level data will be uploaded on the panchayat development index portal by December 31, 2023.