Palwal adopts unique development model

Bijendra Ahlawat

Palwal may be the youngest district in Haryana, but it has taken a kind of lead over other districts. It has set a benchmark by adopting a unique model of development known as the Super Village Challenge competition. Under the programme, village panchayats are engaged in a competition to implement development schemes in a time-bound manner.

The first round of the competition was organised from November 2017 to February 2018. The district administration launched the second round of the competition in September this year and it is likely to culminate in January 2019.

Zishan Khan, Chief Minister’s Good Governance Associate, describes it as a new lifeline for development of villages. The competition is said to be the brainchild of Abhinav Vats, the previous Chief Minister’s Good Governance Associate, whose tenure ended in July this year. While 55 village panchayats took part in the first round of the competition last year, the number of panchayats joining the programme this time has gone up to 120. There are around 310 panchayats in the district.

“Before joining Palwal as Chief Minister’s Good Governance Associate, I read about it to acquaint myself about my workplace. I discovered that the biggest challenge facing the district was in the health sector,” says Khan. He liked the Super Village Challenge and launched the Super Village Challenge Round-2 with specific themes of Health and WaSH (water, sanitation and hygiene). 

Khan says the state government had appreciated the basic framework of the Super Village Challenge Palwal-1 and quickly adopted it in the 7-star village scheme. But the competition is needed in every district of the state, so as to increase penetration. 

The 35 parameters comprise 19 of health and 16 of cleanliness. Besides, the focus will be on drainage, garbage disposal, educational infrastructure, roads, polythene bag-free environment, and other basic facilities. While Rs 1.5 crore was given to top 12 panchayats during the first phase of the competition that ended in February this year, no financial reward has been announced for the second phase so far.  

Palwal Deputy Commissioner Mani Ram Sharma says that the competition is first of its kind initiative that aims at using a competitive framework to encourage sarpanches and panchayats to achieve a diverse range of development parameters in a given time period. The work related with open defecation free (ODF) sustainability, women empowerment, education, health care, skill development and innovation at the village level will be taken into account for the calculation of the total points achieved by a village. 

Sharma says while every parameter has a respective target and points, the top performing villages at the district and block levels will be honoured, though no decision to release special funds has been taken so far. A Leadership Dashboard maintained by the district administration will show the performances of the participating villages both online and at the district headquarters.

The performance will be tracked through the web portal  — www.supervillagepalwal.in. The village sarpanch will be able to upload a self-declaration about any achievement made from time to time with the help of a login-Id, while experts of the department concerned will conduct a verification drive to assess the claims and will award points after 15 days of the upload. The portal has been activated with every village having a dedicated account accessible via login credentials. Department officials will also have dedicated accounts to record observations after verification.