Chief Minister M K Stalin called on the people to conserve water by undertaking constructive work towards nourishing water resources, protecting water bodies and keeping the environment clean by maintaining sanitation and effectively managing solid and liquid waste.
Addressing the participants of the over 12,000 grama sabha (village council) meetings held all over the State but for two villages – Eganapuram in Kancheepuram district and Kattalai in Cuddalore district – on the occasion of Gandhi Jayanthi on Monday, Stalin said grama sabha meeting were being held regularly and properly only the DMK came to power.
It was his government that ordered the meeting should be conducted six times a year – Republic Day, World Water Day, Labour Day, Independence Day and Gandhi Jayanthi – to improve people’s participation in rural administration though the Tamil Nadu Panchayat Act, 1994, mandated the holding of meetings only twice a year.
Total development of villages was highly essential for a State’s development that was not based only on economic progress and industrial growth but on social development, he said, adding that the government was devising all its schemes based on that understanding.
His government was striving hard to create socially developed villages that were autonomous, self-sufficient and independent with all necessary infrastructure and facilities, Stalin assured the participants and asked them to tell the other villages to attend the grama sabha as it provided a platform for the exchange of constructive ideas.
The participation of women, people belonging to the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities in the grama sabha meeting should be ensured and due respect should be given to their views that should be properly recorded and the projects undertaken should benefit all and common to the entire society, he said.
Stressing on the need to discuss only issues concerning the overall development of the villages with a aim of a holistic growth, he equated the gram sabhas to the State Assemblies and Parliament that echoed with people’s views and said that the meetings were held to ensure that the people’s voice could be heard at any time without any disruption under any circumstance.
The grama sabhas, besides taking active interest in the welfare of the poor, needy, disabled, aged, and children, should function as a bridge to take the benefits of the government’s efforts in education to the beneficiaries, he said and explained the various schemes launched by his government.
Referring to the breakfast schemes in schools, he urged the grama sabhas to help strengthen the initiative, under which 16 lakh students all over the State were being served food in the morning, and other development programmes in the field of education.
Stating that democracy first bloomed in the villages, Stalin referred to the historic temple inscriptions that speak about an age-old democratic system in practice at Uthiramerur near Kancheepuram during the Chola rule. He said that when the democratic system, the Kodavolai method in which peoples’ representatives were chosen by drawing of lots - names of aspirants were inscribed in palm leaves and dropped in pot from which they were picked to identify the winner – was in vogue, the people’s assembly was called grama sabha.
