Over to panchayats

Can the government's move to align panchayat targets with UN's Sustainable Development Goals help India meet the global deadline?

- RAJU SAJWAN

IN 2022, we took a pledge to remove poverty from our village by 2030 and ensure employment of all residents. With our efforts, women in the village now work with self-help groups, while men earn through self-employment schemes," says Vinayak Gaikwad, sarpanch of Khandobachi Wadi, a village in Maharashtra Sangli district. In 2023, the National Panchayat Performance Assessment Committee awarded the village the first prize under "Poverty free and enhanced livelihoods" category. The award allows the panchayat to undertake works worth up to 1 crore in the village.

These were India's first National Panchayat Awards and will be an annual feature. The official dashboard of the panchayat awards says that its primary aim is "to assess the performance" of panchayats in meeting the UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030.

India has been chasing SDGS since the UN adopted them in 2015. To this end, the Niti Aayog releases an SDG Index Report every year since 2018. But in 2019, the country's apex public policy think tank asked the government to focus on Localisation of Sustainable Goals (LSDG). The task went to the Union Ministry of Panchayati Raj. In May 2021, the ministry set up a highpower committee, which submitted a report in October 2021. The report forms the basis of the awards.

Acting on the report, the ministry divided the 17 UN SDGS into nine themes, while also incorporating the 29 panchayat subjects under the XIth Schedule of Constitution of India (see 'Thematic integration').

The ministry then asked villages to prepare their Gram Vikas Panchayat Plan (GPDP) on the basis of nine themes. The top three panchayats are awarded in each category.