The 73rd amendment to the Constitution brought about a comprehensive change in the field of Rural Development and Panchayat Raj system in the country paving the way for several reformative measures in the field, Minister for Law and Parliamentary Affairs and Legislation H.K. Patil has said.
He was inaugurating a two-day national seminar on “Gram Swaraj and Panchayat Raj”, organised to mark three decades of the 73rd Amendment to the Constitution by the Karnataka State Rural Development and Panchayat Raj University in Gadag on Friday.
Mr. Patil said that late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was the pioneer in making efforts to materialise Mahatma Gandhi’s dream of gram swaraj and it was during the tenure of the late Prime Minister Narasimha Rao that the amendment was brought. The amendment brought about comprehensive changes in the field including implementation of reservation at the gram panchayat level and enabling members of Scheduled Castes and Tribes to become heads of gram panchayats, he said.
