Expert panel report on panchayat bodies incorrect: Deo

Panchayati Raj Minister V Kishore Chandra Deo today dismissed as "incorrect" an expert committee report that said panchayati raj institutions have not moved forward over the years and been pushed to the margins in almost all centrally sponsored schemes.
"I am not ready to accept the fact that panchayati raj institutions (PRIs) are stagnant. You cannot generalise it, it could be true for some states but it is incorrect to say that things have not moved across the country. A lot of improvement has taken place and it is visible," he told reporters here.
Deo said he has not gone through the report released today on the Panchayati Raj Day but his ministry would like to implement the "practical suggestions".

The expert committee headed by senior Congress leader and former panchayati raj minister Mani Shankar Aiyar has regretted that Panchayat Raj Institutions have been pushed to the margins in almost all centrally sponsored schemes, and suggested devolution of powers for efficient delivery.
It said the Panchayat Raj has also been "seriously suborned" by establishing parallel bodies under the centrally sponsored schemes (CSS) that are neither "embedded" in the panchayat system nor have "organic links" to PRIs.
The report blamed lack of clarity to proceed scientifically, objectively, methodologically an practically down the path of devolution for the slow progress of these institutions.

"Clearly the present system has hopelessly failed to fulfil its functions," Aiyar had told reporters yesterday.
To another question, Deo said states likes Jammu and Kashmir and Jharkhand have to devolve funds and functions to these bodies.
He also hailed a recent Supreme Court ruling that the Vedanta Group's bauxite mining project in Niyamgiri Hills of Odisha will have to get clearance from the gram sabha.