Essay on The Village Panchayat
There is a headman in the family. He takes care of the needs of all members of the family. Most of the people in India live in villages like families. The villagers too have to be looked after by somebody. No single person can do this work well. This is done by a group of people called the Village Panchayat. The Panchayat system is an ancient system in our country. Earlier each village had a Panchayat which looked after the welfare of the village. Under the foreign rule this system vanished.
The government of free India established Village Panchayat to look after the villages. Now each big village has a Panchayat. In cases of small villages, two or three villages form a Panchayat. All adult persons of the village are members of the Village Panchayat. They elect a headman called Mukhiya for five years and 15 Panches and a Sarpanch. The Sarpanch is the head of the judiciary. The Sarpanch and Panches look after the cases of the villagers. There is a government employee called Gram Sevak to keep records and look after the day-to-day work of the Panchayat. There is a village volunteer Force headed by Dalpati.
The Village Panchayat's main duty is to look after the sanitation, health, education, agriculture, roads and streets, ponds and market of the village. The Mukhia prepares plans for development and welfare of the village. The Village Panchayat can levy some taxes on the villagers. The Village Panchayat is very useful. It adopts the easiest method to settle village disputes. It can improve the miserable conditions of our villages.
But now a days its usefulness has become doubtful because of differences in political parties. The conflicts of political parties have their impact on the working of the Village Panchayat. So the Village Panchayats have failed to achieve their object. Casteism, communalism and dirty politics. stand in the way of their working.
Growth of so many parties in our country stands in the way of success of any system that may be in introduced in India, The success of the Gram Panchayat is doubtful in our country. It will meet the same fate as the local bodies have met.
