“The GramPanchayats should enhance their own source of revenueswhich would enable them to utilize these according to their needs. These funds wouldof coursebe in addition to what they are getting from Central Government and State Governments in accordance with the respective Finance Commission recommendations”, said Shri Sunil Kumar, Secretary, Ministry of Panchayati Raj (MoPR). Shri Kumar was speaking at the inaugural session of the one day National Conference on Augmentation of Own Source Revenues (OSR) of Rural Local Bodies being a part of the week-long series of conferences on “Localisation of SDGs”  organized by the Ministry of Panchayati Rajto mark Iconic Week (11^th – 17^th April 2022) under AzadiKa AmritMahotsav. Today’s National Conference was organized on sub-themes of Poverty-free villages with employment opportunities, villages with self-sufficient infrastructure and Good Governance villages under broad theme of “Localisation of SDGs”.

 

“We have taken a pledge to fulfill our commitment to achieve the nine themes representing the 17 SDG goals and work towards achieving them. Augmentation in the OSR would greatly helpinachieving those goals in a much better way. Would you not like your villages to be clean and green, water sufficient, child friendly and so on, for all these things you would be better off if you have your own resources over and above the funds you get from the Central and State Governments”, Shri Sunil Kumar remarked.

 

Dr. Ashok Lahiri, Member of West Bengal Legislative Assembly, noted economist and former Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India in his keynote presentation said that it was extremely important for the Panchayats to generate their own funds that would enable them to have better accountability and effective outcomes of their expenditure quoting that “whenone spends from his pocket, he makes it sure that the money is well spent”. Heasked the stakeholders to consider the suggestions of making a charge on income tax of local residents in a Panchayat through CBDT and enabling them to levy land revenues towards enhancement of OSR of Rural Local Bodies.

 

On the fourth day of the ongoing Iconic Week observed by the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, the Conference was attended by large number of participants from 24 States/UTscomprising of State/UT Panchayati Raj Department officials, Sarpanches and other elected representatives of Panchayats, District Administration officials and Central Ministry/Department officials.

 

The Conference had three technical sessions which covered the subjects of “Present Status of OSR of Rural Local Bodies”, “Performance of OSR of RLBs in States and Way Forward” and “Innovations by Panchayats for OSR and Framework for Road Map towards OSR augmentation”.

 

In the first technical session, Chaired by Shri S.N.Tripathi, Director General, Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA), Shri A.P.Nagar, Joint Secrertary, MoPR, Prof. V.N.Alok, IIPA and Shri S.Bandopadhyay, Senior Fellow, NCAER made presentations on the present status of OSR generation of Panchayats in the States, enabling systems and processes and suggestions for ways forward.

 

In the second technical session, Chaired by Shri A.P. Nagar, Joint Secretary, MoPR, the State level performance of OSR of the Panchayats in the States of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh were explained by the speakers Dr. Joy Elamon, Director, Kerala Institute of Local Administration, Shri Praveen Nair, Commissioner of Panchayati Raj, Tamil Nadu, Shri Anil Kumar Dhameliya, DDO & CEO, Ahmedabad District Panchayat, Gujarat and Shri Alok Kumar Singh, Commissioner, Directorate of Panchayati Raj, Madhya Pradesh.

 

In the third technical session, chaired by Shri Sunil Kumar, Secretary, Ministry of Panchayati Raj, success stories of best performing Gram Panchayats, from the States of Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Sikkim were presented. In these presentations, many interesting examples of generation of OSR for the betterment of the villages were explained by the Sarpanches / representatives of these Panchayats.

 

Dr.ChandrashekharPran, from the NGO, Teesri Sarkar, cited examples of Panchayats where the generation of OSR has been made possible through holistic approach and total community participation.

 

Shri Sunil Kumar, Secretary, MoPR in his concluding remarks made special mention about the efforts of the Ministry towards enabling “Gram UrjaSwaraj” through renewable energy projects in the Gram Panchayats towards fulfilment of the vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat. He assured the full support of the Government in assisting the efforts of the Panchayats towards utilizing such innovative mechanisms for OSR while also marching towards the SDG goals of “Clean and Green Village”.

 

The participants of the Conference had assimilated many new ideas towards augmentation of Own Source Revenues from the Conference and pledged to implement them with serious efforts towards achievement of SDG Goals.

 

 

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