Kavitha creates flutter with maiden speech in Council
Kavtiha urged the panchayat raj minister to treat MPTCs with respect and provide them with a seat while discharging their duties.
HYDERABAD: Nizamabad MLC Kalvakuntla Kavitha's maiden speech in the Legislative Council created a flutter in political circles on Monday.
Kavitha took up the problems faced by MPTCs and ZPTCs due to lack of funds and respect for them. She pointed out that there were no permanent offices for mandal parishad presidents in the newly-formed mandals. MPTCs, who were elected along with sarpanches in gram panchayats, have no place to sit and discharge their duties because of which they are feeling humiliated.
She urged the panchayat raj minister to treat MPTCs with respect and provide them with a seat while discharging their duties. She also sought opportunities for MPTCs and ZPTCs to hoist the National Flag either on Independence Day or Republic Day during official functions in gram panchayats as a measure of showing respect to them.
Although the 15th Finance Commission had imposed a cut in funds to gram panchayats to the tune of Rs 500 crore, Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao compensated this by sanctioning an additional Rs 500 crore, which was hailed by ZPTCs and MPTCS.
Her comments are being seen in political circles as an attempt to take up issues of those representatives, who elected her as an MLC.
Of late, MPTCs and ZPTCs are venting ire saying that under the TRS government, they neither get funds nor respect.
A woman MPTC recently posted a video which went viral on social media platforms lashing out at finance minister T. Harish Rao alleging that he threatened to abolish the MPTC/ ZPTC system in Telangana when she sought funds and duties for MPTCs for development works in their villages.
Responding to Kavitha's comments, minister for panchayat raj Errabelli Dayakar Rao assured to look into all the issues raised by her and resolve them at the earliest.
He said that the state government is releasing funds to gram panchayats every month adding that Rs 227 crore was released every month since April. He stated that from April to September, Rs 1,365 crore was released to gram panchayats.