Digambarpur: India's best Gram Panchayat

Kolkata: Bengal has once again topped in the country with Digambarpur Gram Panchayat (GP) bagging the Centre's award for the best GP in the country.

A survey was conducted to find out the best Gram Panchayat in the country and in a letter to the state government the Ministry of Panchayati Raj has stated that Digambarpur GP at Patharpratima block in South 24-Parganas has come up as the best out of 2.5 lakh Gram Panchayats in the country.

In this connection, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said: "Bengal is first in implementing the scheme of 100 days work in rural employment creation. We have reduced 40 percent unemployment and now the best Panchayat is also in Bengal."

Subrata Mukherjee, minister of the Panchayats and Rural Development minister, said: "It always feels good when the hard work bears its result and it is also an achievement for Bengal. We are happy that Digambarpur has come up as the best Gram Panchayat in the country."

A survey was conducted among all the Gram Panchayats in the country and three were selected. Out of those three, Digambarpur topped the list.

The ranking of the Gram Panchayats have been done on the basis of seven factors of work that was looked into during the survey.

The seven factors include the system of planning, quality of planning, different activities and level of coordination, implementation of the plan and its proper monitoring, use of Information Technology and documentation.

It is learnt that Bengal has bagged the first prize leaving behind the Gram Panchayats of Karnataka and Sikkim.

There is a cash prize for the Gram Panchayat that has bagged the top honour.

Besides this, some more Gram Panchayats in districts including Purulia, Birbhum and Burdwan have also been awarded special prizes for certain achievements.

It may be mentioned that after the change of guard in the state in 2011, massive development work was carried out in the rural parts of Bengal, ushering in a new

change. Starting from construction of roads to helping the populace in improving their standards of living — everything has been ensured by the Mamata Banerjee government in the past few years.

Constant efforts of the Panchayats and Rural Development department has also made Bengal first among all states in rural employment generation.

Interestingly, there was generation of 30.98 crore person-days till March 31 under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).