Honour for Sahungra sarpanch

Aakanksha N Bhardwaj

Jalandhar, January 19

Rajbalwinder Singh (29), sarpanch of Sahungra village of Nawanshahr, has been honoured with the “Uch Sikhiyat Adarsh Yuva Sarpanch Samman” during the 13th Indian Youth Parliament organised by MIT-School of Government (SOG), Pune. Rajbalwinder, who is BA-LLB, has been serving the people of his village for long. He has already received six awards for his outstanding works.

“I owe my success to my parents and my uncle Shingara Ram Sahungra who always supported me and motivated me to do good work. I dedicate the award to the people of my village who chose me to serve them. There is a wave of joy and happiness on the streets of my village,” he said.

“Only three sarpanches from the country – Punjab, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh – have received this award. I received this award from Punjab,” said Singh.

With the efforts of the young and progressive sarpanch, a nondescript and little-known village has taken a giant digital leap towards making its presence felt. The village is just a click away if you want to know its history, total population, percentage of men and women, literacy rate, etc. The Tribune had highlighted that in a unique initiative of its kind, it has developed its own Android app, “Digital Sahungra”.

Claiming that the village is India’s first online gram panchayat, sarpanch Rajbalwinder Singh, says the aim is to make the village popular by putting it on the digital map. Besides giving information, the app also facilitates filing online complaints. People can upload the pictures and videos of problems they are facing in the village on the app for quick redressal. On the app, there is an option for stars of Sahungra where there is proper information about the soldiers who got martyred in the China war and those who were part of World War I. Apart from this, the sarpanch has also been working on various other projects.