Khattar to honour 1,103 village panchayats

Chandigarh, July 10: Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar will honour 1,103 village panchayats with 'State Village' title here on July 10.

In a statement issued here today, Agriculture Minister O P Dhankar said that after presenting the example of educated panchayats among all other states, "Haryana has also become the first state to honour the village panchayats with the title of 'Star Village' ratings for outstanding performance on the basis of social norms."

He said that of total 6,204 villages, 1,120 villages have been given the title of 'State Village', which is 18 per cent of total villages.

Dhankar said that the villages with six star and five star ratings had been honoured by the Governor, Prof Kaptan Singh Solanki at Haryana Raj Bhavan here on July 6.

Hesaid that Ambala district was leading with 407 star village rating followed by Gurgaon with 199 star village and Karnal with 75 star village rating.

He said that 1,074 villages have been declared star village for maintaining peace and brotherhood, 567 star village for better education and 109 star village on the basis of improvement in sex ratio.

Similarly, under the 'Rare Star Ranking' category, 12 villages are selected for good governance and 17 villages for cleanliness.

The minister said that village panchayats will be honoured with colourful stars.

The village panchayats with better performance in sex ratio would be honoured with pink star and those reducing dropouts in education would be honoured with blue star.

Similarly, white star would be given to panchayats for cleanliness, orange star for peace and harmony, green star for environment conservation, golden star for good governance and silver star for social participation.

The minister said that a cash prize of Rs 1 lakh would be given for each star. Therefore, a six star village will get cash prize of Rs 6 lakh.

He said that the villages performing better in Beti Bachao-Beti Padhao and Swachhta Abhiyan would be given Rs 1.5 lakh each.

He said that the villages with six star ratings would be eligible to get additional development works done worth Rs 20 lakh from the department.

Similarly, villages with five star and four star ratings would be eligible to get additional development works done worth Rs 15 lakh and Rs 10 lakh, respectively.