Over 106 villages will become e-panchayats in Karimnagar district in the next few days. The ambitious project of Telangana state government is aimed at providing computerised services in rural areas which would help in maintaining transparency and accountability.
Speaking to this reporter, district panchayat officer (DPO) P. Kumara Swamy said the 106 of the 319 cluster gram panchayats (combination of two or more minor gram panchyats), identified for implementation of the project in the first phase would offer computerised services to the villagers through e-panchayats.
The GPs were provided with the required infrastructure and extension officers of panchayat raj and rural development (EOPRD) were entrusted to oversee the implementation of the project. The officers were told to begin the services at the earliest.
A total of 173 computer operators have been trained and appointed for the project, he added.
In order to ensure effective implementation of the project and monitoring services, 57 mandal headquarters in the district, offices of three divisional panchayat officers and that of the ZP CEO and district panchayat officer have been computerised. The e-panchayats would enable online registration of birth and death, payment of house tax, besides obtaining trade licenses.
Besides, information about developmental works, elected representatives, meetings of panchayats, auctions, cases pertaining to courts, reports of audits and details of employees in a gram panchayat can also be found on the e-panchayat portal. The district has 1,207 gram panchayats. A total of 626 cluster GPs were formed by merging smaller ones into a cluster to implement the project in a phased manner. Of them, 319 were selected for the first phase of project.
