Telangana to have 3,000 tribal sarpanches: K Chandrasekhar Rao

Hyderabad: Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao said on Friday that the state is poised to create a record in the country by having a the highest number of sarpanches from tribal community.

“This is the result of TRS government enacting the new Panchayat Raj Act to upgrade 2,600 girijan thandas (agency areas) into gram panchayats. Apart from this, 400 more persons from the tribal community will become sarpan-ches due to the reservation for STs in other panchayats, taking total girijan sarpanches in the state to 3,000,” Mr Rao remarked.

The CM was addressing the tribals who have come across the state at Pragathi Bhavan to thank him for converting tribal thandas into panchayats and giving them an opportunity to become sarpanches.

Mr Rao said that the poverty in agency areas could be eradicated with the new Act as about Rs 50,000 crore would be released by the state and the Central governmen-ts in the next five years. 

“Normally, state governments does not give funds to gram panchayats. They get grants directly from the Centre and the Finance Commi-ssion. Since these funds are not sufficient, the Telangana state government for the first time has earmarked Rs 1,200 crore for panchayats. Each panchayat will get Rs 3 lakh to Rs 20 lakh depending on population,” Mr Rao added.