Tamil Nadu's village Secretariats: Roles, responsibilities and more

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin on Friday announced setting up 'Village Secretariats' for effective implementation of various government schemes at grassroots level and 600 such secretariats would come up this year.

What will be their roles and responsibilities?

• Village secretariats would be established, which would coordinate and integrate several government schemes for effective implementation.

• The village secretariats would have a chamber for the village panchayat president, a conference hall, offices for the village administrative officer, village panchayat secretary and each of them would be constructed at an estimated Rs 40 lakh each. These shall have all amenities, including the internet.

• The best performing village panchayats would be conferred the 'Uthamar Gandhi Award', from this year and one village panchayat from every district shall get a cash prize of Rs 10 lakh each.

• This year, in 600 village panchayats such village secretariats shall be built and various state-run schemes include those under the departments of Rural Development and Panchayat Raj, Revenue, Agriculture and Social Welfare.

• An increase of five to ten times in the sitting fee of local representatives was announced. The fee is given for participation in official meetings.

• For village panchayat president and village panchayat members the hike shall be five times. As regards district panchayat and panchayat union representatives, the increase would be ten times.

• New vehicles would be purchased for chairpersons of all Panchayat Union Councils for effective monitoring of state schemes at the local level.