How Telangana’s unkept promise of awarding Rs 10L has pushed unanimously elected sarpanches into debt trap

Adilabad: A frantic activity at the gram panchayat level is being witnessed as the current term of sarpanches draws close. The state government seems to be keen on delivering on its promises given the impending election to the Legislative Assembly.

The activity revolves around the promise reportedly made by the government to give an incentive of Rs. 10 lakh as additional funds to those gram panchayats where the election of the sarpanch is held without a contest.

The promise was supposed to have been made by the government during the run-up to the last gram panchayat elections held in January 2019. The incentive had been doubled from the Rs. 5 lakh given to gram panchayats where the sarpanch was elected unanimously during the election held in 2013.

Many of the sarpanches elected unanimously were expecting the incentives until Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao denied having made any such promise a few months back. There are many others of the ilk especially from far-flung interior areas, who continue to expect the government to sanction the incentive money as owing to a communication gap they still have no clue about the CM's denial.

In the case of some 'unanimous' sarpanches, the allegedly unkept promise of the incentive has resulted in problems at a personal level. Most of them have borrowed from money lenders for developmental works hoping to repay when the incentive money was released. For others from tribal areas, it has become an issue of honor.

The method of bringing about consensus among voters in given panchayats to bag the incentive has become the root of evil in gram panchayats like Kapri in Jainad mandal of Adilabad district.

Sample this: Incumbent sarpanch, Yelti Rameela Reddy had struck a deal proposing to contribute Rs. 5 lakh for the development of the panchayat in addition to the Rs. 10 lakh incentive if elected without a contest.

"When the villagers concluded that the government is not going to release the incentive money, they demanded the sarpanch spend Rs. 5 lakh towards fulfillment of her part of the deal. So, in January this year she contributed the amount of money in the construction of a kalyana mandapam in the village," recalled a villager on conditions of anonymity.

In the tribal Seetagondi gram panchayat in Sirpur (U) mandal of Kumram Bheem Asifabad district, villagers of Seetagondi and Chintakarra had agreed to get their candidates elected unanimously by turns. As a result, Thodasam Vijaya of Seetagondi was elected without a contest in 2019.

"Now, our rivals are not accepting the fact that there s no incentive," said a stressed Thodasam Thirman Rao, the husband of the sarpanch. "They are accusing us of siphoning off the Rs. 10 lakh which in actuality was not given by the State government," added Vijaya, agony writ large on her face.

It may be stated here that the Raj Gond tribals are an honest lot and do not take lightly any question about their integrity. Their honor was brought into question by the broken promise, a supporter of the Thodasam family pointed out.

"Almost all the 150 tribal gram panchayats in KB Asifabad have problems related to development owing to lack of funds. The 20 GPs which saw unanimous elections have additional problems like Seetagondi," claimed Sidam Anniga, sarpanch of Chaupanguda in Wankidi mandal who is also secretary of the Adivasi Sarpanchula Sangham State and district units.

However, not all gram panchayats in the state have a paucity of funds of which Adilabad district is an example. "The Special Development Fund of Rs. 200 crore sanctioned by the State government has taken care of much of the developmental activity in gram panchayats in Adilabad Assembly constituency," pointed out Urade Archana Dileep, the unanimously elected sarpanch of Pippalgaon in Jainad Mandal.

As many as 2,134 gram panchayats, of the total of 12,732 in the state, had elected their sarpanch unanimously in January 2019. The total amount required by the government to pay out to the unanimous gram panchayats as an incentive would have been Rs. 213.40 crore.