Srinagar
In a first of its kind, the ‘back to village’ programme has started across Jammu and Kashmir on Thursday.
The ‘back to village’ programme will continue till June 27 across the state and during this period the entire administrative apparatus of the state government is going to move out of state, provincial and district level offices to reach out to the villages.
An official said that Back to the Village’ programme will focus on four main goals viz energizing Panchayats, collecting feedback on the delivery of government schemes/programmes, capturing specific economic potential and undertaking assessment of needs of the villages besides affording an opportunity to Gazetted officers to visit the villages.
He said the programmme will involve the people of the state and government officials in a joint effort to deliver the mission of equitable development across all our rural areas. The programme is primarily aimed at energizing the 4483 Panchayats and directing development efforts in rural areas through community participation and to create in the rural masses an earnest desire for decent standard of living. The officer will spend two days and one night at the panchayat and will hold meetings with elected ‘panchs’ and ‘sarpanchs’, hold ‘graam’ and ‘mahila sabhas’ in addition to other grassroots level interactions.
“The basic objective of this programme is to move governance from its seat of operation to the doorsteps of the people in villages,” he said.
He said that during this programme, the officers will collect data on the guidelines contained in the 20-page booklet that has already been given to them.
The officer who visits the Panchayat will be designated as the Nodal Officer for that village,” reports quoted Sheetal Nanda, Administrative Secretary of the rural development department as having said.
“After some time, the Nodal Officers will revisit the villages and take stock of the redressal of the problems highlighted during their ‘back to village’ deployment,” she said.
“The feedback so obtained will help the government in needs assessment and subsequently to tailor the various central and state government schemes/programmes in improving the delivery of village-specific services and making the village life better in terms improved amenities and economic upliftment,” Sheetal was quoted as saying by the media outlets.
