Jharkhand State Food Commission has announced that they will felicitate the panchayat heads (mukhiyas) who are doing a commendable job in terms of implementation and monitoring of the National Food Security Act (NFSA), 2013, provisions.

Jharkhand food commissioner Himanshu Shekhar Chaudhary informed that the felicitation of the best-performing mukhiyas will be held on December 9, the foundation day of the commission.

“We are the first state in the country to start ‘mukhiya samvaad’ (dialogue with village heads) and it will be completed in all 24 districts by the end of September. We are informing the panchayat heads, who are also the heads of the vigilance committees for the NFSA provisions at the ground level, about their rights in checking and curbing irregularities in the NFSA provisions and distribution of food grains,” said Choudhary.

“Thereafter, we will be evaluating the performance of each of the mukhiyas in terms of parameters of the NFSA laws and the best performers will be felicitated with a memento and a certificate. These would act as an encouragement for the village heads in taking steps to ensure food security rights are adhered to and beneficiaries get their food grains,” Choudhary added.

There are over 4,345 panchayats in Jharkhand.

According to the announcement made by the food commissioner, the top three performing mukhiyas of each of the 24 districts will be felicitated.

A meeting was held on Tuesday to fix the criteria for the selection of mukhiyas for the first, second and third awards of the districts. It was attended by food commissioner Himanshu Shekhar Choudhary, commission member Shabnam Parveen, member secretary Sanjay Kumar, former members of the commission Upendra Narayan Oraon and Ramkaran Ranjan, former state adviser to the commissioner appointed by the Supreme Court, Balram, former vice-chancellor of Vinoba Bhave University, Hazaribagh, Ramesh Sharan, member of Right to Food campaign James Herenz and representative of a voluntary organisation Jayshree Mohanta.

After a detailed discussion in the meeting, a total of eight criteria were fixed for the selection of the mukhiyas doing excellent work. The criteria are:

The work done by the vigilance committee (headed by mukhiya) between October 2022 and September 2023 in the implementation of the NFSA provisions and the efforts made towards the implementation of the decisions taken in the meeting

The physical investigation of the plans of the vigilance committee and the basis of informing the concerned authorities about the outcome of the investigation.

Efforts made by the mukhiyas towards discussion and implementation of the schemes related to the National Food Security Act 2013.

Efforts made in the use of the emergency food grains fund and the efforts made in tracking the beneficiaries. In this case, the selection committee will take into account the efforts made by the mukhiya for a permanent solution to the problem of the person benefiting from the emergency food fund.

Efforts made by the mukhiya to motivate the people of the panchayat to lodge a complaint with the additional collector-cum-district grievance redressal officer or the commission related to irregularities in the schemes or related to the National Food Security Act 2013.