The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : `Grama Sarkara': this wallpaper is meant for reading

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jul 26, 2006

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

`Grama Sarkara': this wallpaper is meant for reading

Alladi Jayasri

Nagarakere Gram Panchayat has painted its monthly paper on a wall

BANGALORE: Villagers in the jurisdiction of the Nagarakere Gram Panchayat in Maddur taluk of Mandya district love to read the writing on the wall. The inaugural edition of "Grama Sarkara," a monthly paper published by the gram panchayat was painted on the wall of the gram panchayat building in May, and it is making news for content and for truly empowering the people with information.

The paper has its own editorial board and a layout like any newspaper. The objective is to celebrate the empowerment of the gram panchayat as the local government, disseminate information on all the programmes of the panchayat and create awareness about how this lowest rung of democracy functions.

To this end the "wallpaper" is full of useful news, people's rights and responsibilities and tells the villagers how they can get the best out of the gram panchayat. The names of the president and other members do not figure anywhere and neither do their words or deeds make news.

What does make news is the unsigned editorial, simply titled the President's Hopes, where he categorically states the paper is the first step to demonstrate that the Nagarakere Gram Panchayat wants to give a "bribe-free" administration, since it stands for honesty, transparency and efficiency.

The editorial states that in order to truly ensure that the benefits of decentralisation reach the people, the panchayat has set up subcommittees on rural water supply and sanitation. The panchayat wants residents to opt for individual toilets in their homes and speaks of many programmes launched to encourage anganwadi workers to work more effectively.

The editorial also notes the panchayat's role in ensuring continuing education for neo-literates and says these learning centres will also double up as information centres. All said, the gram panchayat has used the paper to tell touts and middlemen to keep off by reassuring citizens that they can come to the panchayat office and get all their work done. The news items in the inaugural issue cover a gamut of topics that citizens commonly approach touts for, such as how much house tax must you pay and where will it go and the norms to be followed while getting a `khata' prepared for a house or a site.

The lead article exhorts residents to pay only the specified rates for their rations, which has been fixed by the gram panchayat.

The prices are published and so is the information that the panchayat has directed the fair price shop owners in Nagarakere, Upparadoddi, Hulire and Malagarahalli to follow the rates fixed.

In the anchor story on the steep cost of rural water supply, the panchayat shows how water supply and maintenance guzzles a lot of money leaving a deficit of at least Rs. 3,292 each month.

There is news that a committee has been set up to regulate water supply and sanitation.

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