Theatre personality and handloom activist Prasanna has opined that villages should get a major share in the tax revenue collected by the government.
At a discussion on Gram Swarajya in Hassan on Tuesday, he said that in India, a major share of the tax revenue had been utiliszed by the Centre. The provincial governments would get another major share, while local bodies get the least. “Local bodies hardly get 6% of the taxes collected. It is an irony that villages which require maximum funds for the development, get the least”, he said.
Drawing a comparison with the system in China, Mr. Prasanna said in that country villages get 70% of the total taxes collected. The countries which spent the highest amount of funds on rural development had recorded good economic growth.
“In India, the situation is completely different. Here officers rule, ignoring the elected representatives”, he said. He also stressed the need for efforts to safeguard the jobs that form the rural economy rather than creating jobs in urban India. One job created in cities would have killed many jobs in rural areas.
Prasanna Keragodu, assistant professor, opined that youths should take leadership in rural local bodies. In the last gram panchayat elections, he encouraged eight of his students to contest, and all of them won without the support of any political party. “We can expect some changes with such active participation of youth”, he said.
Prakash Kammaradi, former chairman of Karnataka Agricultural Price Commission; activist Sharada Gopal; Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha president Badagalapura Nagendra; journalist R.P. Ventakeshamurthy; Raitha Sangha leaders K.T. Gangadhar, Kuruburu Shantakumar and others were present.
