‘Now, panchayats can revalidate lease deeds’
SUMMARY Rajendra Rathore was talking about the last four years of BJP govt in the state JAIPUR:The
state government has given power to panchayats to revalidate lease deeds and in the past four years, 9.5 lakh deeds have been issued in the state, panchayati raj and rural development minister Rajendra Rathore said on Wednesday.
Addressing the media during a programme organised to celebrate four years of the Vasundhara Raje government, Rathore said that under the Deen Dayal Upadhyay Gramin Patta Vitaran Abhiyan 85,0216 lease deeds were issued by panchayats in the last year. Over the four-year period, this number stands at 9.5 lakh.
An amendment was made in the Rajasthan Panchayati Raj Act 1996 by adding rule 167 (k) providing that panchayats can revalidate lease deeds issued by them.
Earlier, the deeds had to be validated within a period of six months or they lapsed. Now if the six-month period lapses, the panchayats can revalidate the deeds.
Nearly ₹48,800 crore has been spent by the government for various developmental schemes in the last four years of its tenure, Rathore added.
He said that in the next three months, 17 districts will be declared Open Defecation Free and 4 lakh more toilets will be built. A total of 73.76 lakh toilets have been built at a cost of ₹4,988 crore in four years, he added.
“So far 7,616 gram panchayats have been declared Open Defecation Free. In the next three months, 600 more will be declared ODF.”
“We are well on way to achieving our target and the state becoming ODF by 2018 as per the chief minister’s announcement,” said Rathore.
The minister noted that Rajasthan stood second in the country with the construction of 21.62 lakh toilets in 2015-16 and 27.94 lakh toilets in 2016-17.
Regarding the Mahatma Gandhi NREGA scheme, the minister said that the government in four years has provided employment to over 40 lakh rural families and created 89 crore man days with 5.40 lakh works being completed.
The BJP minister added that the desert state received five national awards for excellent execution of schemes under MNREGA in the year 2015-16.
He said MNREGA and Swachh Bharat missions have been linked and two sanitation workers have been employed in each village for cleanliness. “So far 10,000 safai karamcharis have been employed in various gram panchayats. This is the first time safai karamcharis have been deployed in rural areas.”
Rathore said that the chief minister’s ambitious Jal Swavlamban Yojana has also yielded good results. “An impact study has shown that the water level has risen between 1-3 metres. In the two phases of the project, 11173 million cubic feet of water was collected during the monsoon.” Water conservation works were carried out in 21,000 villages in last four years, the minister added.
On the Housing for All scheme in rural areas, he said the target was 17 lakh houses by 2022. “Till now 9.2 lakh have been built. In 2018-19, as against the target of 6.75 lakh families being sanctioned houses, 4.44 lakh houses have been sanctioned,” he said.