Highlighting crucial importance of peace and communal harmony for overall growth; Provincial President Devender Singh Rana on Monday emphasized the need for participatory democracy saying that peoples’ involvement is imperative for successful development process.
“Development will remain a distant dream as long as long as the aspirations of people are not solicited in formulation of developmental projects and welfare schemes”, Rana said in a statement to KNS, while interacting with the opinion leaders of nine Panchayat Halqas of Mathwar Block of Nagrota Assembly Constituency at a day-long Development Awareness Grievances Camp (DAGC) here.
Development Awareness Grievances Camp (DAGC) is a concept introduced by Mr Rana, MLA Nagrota, to reach out to the people and seek their suggestions on priortising developmental strategy for the Constituency
Rana, who represents the Constituency in the Legislative Assembly, said peoples’ participation in development effort and decision making is imperative. He said they assume key role in prioritizing the schemes in their areas within allocated allocations, as also monitoring the pace of work to have these completed within stipulated time frame.
“Decisions with regard to development and public welfare cannot be taken in isolation of the popular wishes”, he said adding these are required to flow from the ground itself through public representatives. He said this vital necessity cannot be ignored by not keeping the elected representatives at the grass roots level, especially in the rural areas in loop. He hoped the administration will appreciate necessity of involving the people in this task, which in turn will help in creating conducive atmosphere in accomplishing various schemes.
He said participatory democracy, which remained a focal point with the introduction of single line administration had helped to create opportunities for different segments of society in making meaningful contribution in decision making.Click Here To Follow Our WhatsApp ChannelThis concept should be a guiding force for the policy planners, he added.
As representative of the people, he said he will strive to seek schemes and developmental projects to be tailored as per mass aspirations. He accordingly sought suggestions from the village elders about the schemes which needed to be taken up first. He said the pace of development on the ongoing schemes is needed to be stepped up to have these completed in a time bound manner.
Responding to local issues, the Provincial President said the purpose of having DAGC is to seek the public opinion and to work out a strategy to make the administrative machinery move in accordance with urges of the people. While priority has be accorded to ensuing proper drinking water and power supply, a cohesive policy is needed to be adopted for ensuring irrigations facilities and disbursement of inputs to farming community. He also stressed the need for streamlining public distribution system so that the consumers get quality and timely food-grains.
During the camp, the participants highlighted community problems with regard to power, drinking water, health, education, roads, irrigation and agriculture in particular and hoped these would get priority attention.
Prominent among those who spoke on the occasion included Block President Sham Lal Sharma; besides Sarpanches Anwar Khan;Balbir Singh;Ravinder Singh, Sudershan Singh; Mumtaz ,Nachettar Singh, Ex Sarpanch Sai Khan, and Panches Kesar, Master Dhruv Singh, Tejpal Singh, Arjun Singh, Krishan Gopal,Mohd. Sadiq, ,Dr.Radhey Sham and others. (KNS)