Jammu And Kashmir Gov Announces Third Phase Of Ambitious 'Back To Village' Programme

The first two chapters of the flagship programme has generated huge interest among the people forcing the administration to announce Phase-III of B2V, starting from October 2 to October 12.

Photo by Rakesh BAKSHI / AFP (Representative Image)

The Jammu and Kashmir today announced the third phase of ambitious Back to Village (B2V) programme from October 2 to 12, 2020. The announcement was made by Principal Secretary, Power Development and Information Departments, Rohit Kansal who is also government spokesperson, here at a press conference.

Terming the first two phases of Back to Village (B2V) as huge success, Mr Kansal said it is a unique programme which received  tremendous respect from the people when 4000 Gazetted Officers from J&K administration visited each and every Panchayat of J&K. The first two chapters of the flagship programme has generated huge interest among the people forcing the administration to announce Phase-III of B2V, starting from October 2 to October 12. Officials said that the  Phase-I of B2V was an introductory and interactive programme to understand the people’s grievances and demands. While Phase-II focused on the devolution of powers to panchayats and tried to understand how these panchayats are functioning and what are the grievances and demands. Now the Phase-III has been designed on the format for grievance redressal. But before the start, administration has decided to hold a three-week Pre-Back to Village Jan Abhiyan which will be organized from September 10 to September 20 and will have three components. “The three pillars will be the redressal of public grievances (Jan Sunvaiyee), public service delivery (Adhikar Abhiyan) and delivery of development at Gram Panchayat level (Unat Gram Abhiyan). While highlighting the Pre-B2V-3 programme, he said that Yaum-e-Block would be observed for three consecutive weeks at pre-designated location or at block headquarters on every Wednesday with coordination from relevant officers. He said during this period public grievances would be listened to and would be tried to sort out on the spot or the following week or next following week. “As many as public grievances would be tried to be disposed of on spot,” he maintained. He said during this period all the Deputy Commissioners and respective Superintendents of Police will be available in their office every day except Wednesday and Sunday from 10 am to 11:30 pm while Divisional Commissioners will be available from 10:30 am to 11:30 am on every Tuesday and Thursday. However, he added that during Youm-e-Block, which will be on Wednesday, all DCs and SPs will visit every block over a period of thee weeks. “The concerned would address these grievances in these 20 days and be available with the concerned for redressal,” he said. He said that all the DCs will try to ensure 100 per cent saturation of all 55 schemes and to be taken care of by them also. While explaining the third component of pre-B2V Unat Gram Abhiyan, the focus will be on doing development rather than talking development and developmental departments will be the second most important demand and will analyze  the B2V1 and B2V2 and to make ensure that the works during these two phases were executed and completed before B2V-3. “For these works the funds have already been released to all DCs to finish the works taken under these two phase of B2V,” he said. “This will be the month of progress of grievances and development on public grievances.” He said that incharge officers will be administrative secretaries and will make visits to designated districts to have first hand experiences of all developmental works taken under B2V1 and B2V2. While Jan Abhiyan will conclude on September 30, B2V-3 will start from October 2 till October 12 when actually all the works would be analyzed, re-verified and rechecked that is why this phase will be an action programme where government will be meeting the demands and grievances of people during B2V1 and B2V2, Mr Kansal said. “We are confident that the entire next month will be a festival of public grievance redressal, festival of public service delivery and festival of delivery of development at gram Panchayat level,” Mr Kanal concluded.