President Pranab Mukherjee received the first copy of an encyclopedic publication titled "Status of Panchayati Raj in the States and Union Territories of India 2013" at the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
The volume was presented yesterday by it's General Editor Dr. George Mathew, Chairman, Institute of Social Sciences, New Delhi in the presence of Mani Shankar Aiyar, former Union Minister for Panchayati Raj.
The 737-page volume traces the history of rural local governments from the colonial period upto the present day.
Apart from an introduction which gives an overview of the Panchayati Raj system, the volume has special articles such as "Appraisal of Panchayats in Fifth Scheduled Areas", "Panchayats and Women" and "Fiscal Decentralization".
The publication provides exhaustive data on Blocks/Talukas/Mandals and Districts based on the 2001 and 2011 Census along with maps, demographic data on the Districts and Blocks as also the socio-economic profiles of each State and Union Territory.