HYDERABAD: While TPCC president A. Revanth Reddy and several Congress leaders were arrested on Monday, sarpanches from across the political spectrum in several districts issued an ultimatum to the Telangana government to return Central funds that were meant for them within a week, or they would take to the streets and hold a “Chalo Pragathi Bhavan” protest to press their demand.
Hundreds of sarpanches have tendered their resignation to the BRS in protest against the alleged diversion of the Central funds meant for gram panchayats, and few hundreds have threatened to quit the party if the government fails to return the funds within a week.
Sarpanchs claim that the government owed each gram panchayat up to `20 lakh and that they had to spend their own money on village development because the government diverted the funds that it received from the Centre for the purpose.
This diversion of funds had left them in debt, they claimed. The state government had failed to release funds for six months, and sarpanchs said they had to raise funds on their own to pay salaries for sanitation staff in villages, to undertake development activities such as Haritha Haram, Prakruthi Vanam, road laying and maintenance, sanitation activities, and so on.
They claimed that all sarpanches in the state fell into a “debt trap” as they raised funds through private lenders and mortgaged their properties to undertake village development activities.
When the Centre last week credited the Finance Commission grants directly into the bank accounts of gram panchayats, the state government fraudulently diverted the amount into its accounts without their notice instead of clearing pending bills, sarpanchs alleged.
They claimed that the government had diverted Central funds to pay Rythu Bandhu funds and began disbursing the amount to farmers from December 28.
“To prevent diversion of Central funds, the central government directly credited funds in the bank accounts of gram panchayats. Only sarpanches and upa sarpanches have power to withdraw these funds online through digital signatures. But panchayat secretaries misused our digital signatures and transferred the funds to state government accounts without our notice. This amounts to financial fraud and cyber crime,” remarked Satyanarayana Reddy, president, Telangana Panchayat Raj Chamber.
He said they would file cases against district collectors, district and mandal level panchayat officers and also panchayat secretaries in all the police stations and also lodge complaints with various investigation agencies for “stealing our digital signatures and funds”.
Countering the claims of sarpanches, minister for panchayat raj Errabelli Dayakar Rao accused the BJP of provoking sarpanches against the state government.
“The state government has the power to utilise central funds as per the TS Panchayat Raj Act. The funds were used to pay the power bill arrears of gram panchayats which have accumulated over the years. Gram panchayats are facing a fund crunch due to the Centre stopping funds since April. It started releasing the funds only recently. The state government on the other hand is releasing funds regularly to gram panchayats. I appeal to sarpanches not to fall into BJP’s trap,” Dayakar Rao said.
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