HYDERABAD: The National Informatics Centre (NIC) on Tuesday announced the rollout of IT-enabled governance `ePANCHAYAT' in 475 major gram panchayats across the State at a cost of Rs. 8.31 crores.

NIC's deputy director-general C.S.R. Prabhu made the announcement in the presence of the Minister for Panchayat Raj (PR) J.C. Diwakar Reddy, and Principal Secretary M. Samuel at a review meeting with District Panchayat Officers (DPO). It started as a pilot project in Ramachandrapuram in Medak district and spread to 40 panchayats.

The Government had expanded the service further, at a cost of Rs. 1.75 lakh each at 475 panchayats.

Mr. Diwakar Reddy said large-scale misappropriation of public money had become a cause of concern for the Government.

If the officials were strict enough, there would be no scope for misuse of public money.

He asked the DPOs to take the lead and involve themselves in the two-day training programme on `ePANCHAYAT' so that they could be trainers.

The Minister regretted the fall in revenue collection by gram panchayats and in districts like Anantapur it was only 17.64 per cent.

He said the Government was against book adjustments, which were increasing by the day.

In the context of devolution of powers, panchayats needed to do better, he said.

Attitudinal change

Mr. Samuel called for an attitudinal change in officials and non-officials in view of the PR reforms and expansion of the scope of development. Each PR institution was a self-governing body and it should be given as many powers as it wanted after detailed discussions, he said.

The Commissioner of PR, S.E. Sekhar Babu called for a re-dedication on the part of officials to the task of providing welfare in villages and ensuring that the money earmarked for their development was utilised properly.

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