Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, who chaired the CLP meeting and initiated the debate on MLA K.R Ramesh Kumar’s report on the Panchayat Raj Act, directed the Rural Development and Panchayat Raj (RDPR) Department to prepare a calendar of events for tabling the proposed Bill and holding elections to GPs. Over 50 Congress MLAs and MLCs, including State Congress president G. Parameshwara, spoke on the proposed amendments and gave suggestions to give more teeth to the Act to ensure effective implementation of schemes.
RDPR Minister H.K. Patil said the 
  • next elections to GPs would be held based on the proposed Bill, which would be tabled in the next session of the legislature in February.
  • The proposed major amendments are: 
  • more powers to gram sabhas; 
  • a special gram sabha for SC, STs; 
  • reservation and rotation of seats once in 10 years; 
  • term of office of local bodies’ chiefs for five years against the existing 20 months; 
  • setting up a separate cadre of service called the Karnataka Panchayat Administrative Service, and 
  • State funding of elections.
  • The proposals include recall of gram panchayat (GP) members and 30 per cent of budgetary allocation to rural local bodies.


RDPR to prepare calendar of events for tabling the proposed Bill and holding elections to GPs
RDPR to prepare calendar of events for tabling the proposed Bill and holding elections
to GPs