Karna Gram panchayats' meetings to go live on cable TV

In an initiative aimed at offering a more transparent and result-oriented system of governance, proceedings of meetings of as many as 1,000 gram panchayats in Karnataka will go live over cable TV from March 1 next.
In the first phase, it was planned to telecast live proceedings of 1,000 gram panchayats, state Rural Development and Panchayatraj Minister H K Patil said today.
Out of the 5,600-odd gram panchayats, about 3,500 have access to Cable Television and their proceedings would be telecast live, he said.
The government has decided to release Rs 10 crore for the project with immediate effect, he said, adding that each gram panchayat will get between Rs 1.50 lakh and Rs 2 lakh.

The live proceedings will offer a more transparent and result-oriented system of governance, Patil said. "People (Gram Panchayat members) will be very careful when others are looking at them," he added.
The Minister said he was inspired by such an exercise taken up by Shirguppi and Hulakoti gram panchayats.

On Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), he said the government had requested the Centre to release Rs 900 crore to implement the project.
Of the Rs 2,133 crore allocated, the state had spent Rs 1,187 crore for taking up works under MGNREGS, Patil said. "We are spending, on an average, Rs 20 crore every day. About 70,000 works under the scheme are going on in the state."

The government has instructed the district officials to make payments in 15 days, Patil said.