The government has invited suggestions from presidents of over 200 taluka and 25 district panchayats, besides sarpanchs of some 13,000 village panchayats. They are to send suggestions by April 14.

A five-member committee headed by the state development commissioner will go through the suggestions and prepare a detailed report of acceptable ones.

A state-level convention of elected members of taluka and district panchayats had been held in Gandhinagar recently at which a resolution recommending amendments to the Act had been adopted unanimously. It was after this the government set up the committee.

Suman Patel, general-secretary of the All-India Panchayat Sangathan (Gujarat Unit), which had organised the convention, said: ``Responding to the 73rd amendment in the Indian Constitution, The Gujarat Panchayat Act of 1961 had been amended in 1993. But, several important amendments, as recommended in the historic 73rd Constitutional amendment, had not been incorporated in the Panchayat Act, 1993, leaving behind a lot of anomalies and disparities in the Act.''

Patel, former chairman of the state finance commission, says the anomalies and flaws in the existing Gujarat Panchayat Act had thrown up several serious questions. ``The governmentisation of the Panchayati Raj will continue to affect its autonomy and thus hamper the process of rural development in the state until and unless these anomalies are removed from the Act,'' he avers.

The Sangathan has recommended to the government that sections 59 and 73 of the Panchayat Act be amended so that village sarpanchs and presidents and vice-presidents of taluka/district panchayats are not suspended merely on the basis of their arrest or a police FIR filed against them in moral turpitude cases. They should not be suspended until a chargesheet in such a case is submitted against them, or until they are jailed for more than seven days.

There are instances where the panchayat chiefs are framed in bogus cases, contends the Sangathan. The aggrieved should be given an opportunity to defend themselves before suspension.

The Sangathan is opposed to the present practice of moving no-confidence motions at the drop of the hat against office-bearers of panchayats, which, it believes, is done out of sheer political vendetta.

As provided in the State Legislative Assembly, there must be a provision of six-month gap in the Panchayat Act between the first and the second no-trust motion against its office-bearer.

Another recommendation the government has been asked to consider is to do away with the existing provision of adopting a no-trust proposal by a 2/3 majority members against a village sarpanch, and instead reintroduce the earlier provision (of the 1961 Panchayat Act) of seeking vote from the villagers to remove their leader from the post. ``A sarpanch is directly elected by villagers, who alone have the right to remove him,'' argues Patel.

Seeking participation of elected village panchayat members in the functioning of taluka panchayats and of taluka bodies in district panchayats, the Sangathan has suggested that 20 per cent of the sarpanchs of all the village panchayats in a taluka should be co-opted as members in a taluka panchayat. Similarly, taluka panchayat presidents and vice-presidents be co-opted as members in district panchayats.

This will help remove administrative problems now confronting all the three tiers of the Panchayati Raj system in the state. The present practice of inviting n MLA in taluka/district panchayat's board meeting only encourages political interference in its functioning, especially when the MLA belongs to a ruling party.

Among other recommendations made by the Sangathan is one for reducing the work-load of panchayat presidents by transferring some of their power to vice-presidents in certain functional areas, like district rural development and cottage industries.

Besides panchayat chiefs want that they should be consulted before land in their area is dereserved by the government. They also want that 50 per cent of the revenue collected from people living in a panchayat area should go to the panchayat. Now, a panchayat gets merely 10 per cent.

Another recommendation is that the government must nominate representatives from the Panchayati Raj system and also from voluntary organisations on the state council headed by the panchayat minister.