Finding unused agricultural land to increase cultivation coverage and giving women a greater say in decision-making are some of the tasks gram panchayats will have with the government deciding to roll out a five-year ‘perspective plan’ starting next year.
From 2023-24, every gram panchayat will have its own perspective plan for which work has started. The plans, which will be in force till 2027-28, will be linked to various Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) targets.
“Under the Karnataka Gram Swaraj Act, the gram panchayats are expected to prepare a five-year perspective plan,” Additional Chief Secretary (Rural Development & Panchayat Raj) L K Atheeq said.
“It is our experience that gram panchayats require training and orientation to prepare perspective plans. Hence, we have taken up an extensive training and orientation programme to reach each gram panchayat and orient the members to prepare a comprehensive five-year plan for their respective gram panchayats,” he said.
The five-year plans will have targets for every gram panchayat to achieve, according to an order issued by the RDPR department. “The targets have to be revised based on a review of physical progress and statistics of the previous year’s achievements,” the order stated.
The government has identified eight sectors on which the perspective plans would focus: poverty, livelihood & skill development; health; education; women & child development; socially secure village; environment & natural resources; infrastructurally self-dependent village; good governance village.
One of the focus areas is identifying unused land that is fit for agriculture.
“At the national level, it is estimated that 10-15 per cent of land area can be brought under cultivation. We want to look at this in the state. There could be land whose soil must have fertility, and hence unused. We’re collecting data,” said G S Ganesh Prasad, faculty (planning & research) at the Abdul Nazir Sab State Institute of RDPR (SIRD).
Another challenge that the perspective plans wants to tackle is to make sure women engage in developmental activities more and more. “Typical of rural areas, women are unable to make time out of their household responsibilities for developmental activities and decision-making process,” a note prepared by the SIRD stated.