Standing Committees.

1[61. Standing committees. – (1) Every Gram Panchayat shall h ave the following standing committees constituted from among members by election, namely: – (i) General standing committee to perform functions relating to agricultural production, animal husbandry and rural industries and poverty alleviation programmes, education, public works and other functions of the Gram Panchayats, supervision of public works for investigation and reporting on complaints raised by the Gram Sabha about poor quality, pilferage and misappropriation of funds in the execution of works. (ii) Finance, audit and planning standing committee to perform the functions relating to the finance of the Gram Panchayats, framing of budgets, scrutinizing proposals for increase of revenue examinations of receipts and expenditure statement, considerat ion of all proposals affecting the finances of the Gram Panchayats and general supervision of the revenue and expenditure of the Gram Panchayats and any other function relating to the development plan of the Gram Panchayat, information and statistics. Every Gram Panchayat shall collate and store the vision and annual plans, data related to the census, surveys conducted, PRAs and data concerning rural development, details of central and State Government schemes in progress, data relating to agricultural practices and other information of importance to farmers, data concerning physical infrastructure index and assets and resources relating the Panchayat raj system in general and Gram Panchayats in particular that shall assist the Gram Panchayat to fine tun e their plans and budget outlays. (iii) Social justice standing committee for; – 74 (a) promotion of educational, economic, social, cultural and other interest of the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes and backward classes, protection of such castes and c lasses from social injustice and any form of exploitation; (b) Welfare of women and children. The social justice committee shall address women’s concerns and issues such as the empowerment of women by achieving their social, cultural and economic develo pment and to protect them against crimes of domestic violence, sexual harassment etc., within the Gram Panchayat. Functions of the social justice committee shall include tendering of advice to the panchayat on promoting gender friendly programs by ensuring adequate facilitations for women at schools, offices, factories, hospitals and other public places and go about their daily lives in freedom and dignity: Provided that, the social justice committee shall consist of at least one member who is a women and o ne member from either the scheduled castes or scheduled tribes whichever has more number of elected members. The social justice committee shall elect one person among scheduled caste or scheduled tribe as the chairman of the committee. (2) The committees m entioned in sub -section (1) shall have power to co -opt one or two computer technicians conversant with web designing and organisation and maintenance of electronic portals. (3) The Adhyaksha of Gram Panchayat shall be the ex -officio chairman of the financ e, audit and planning standing committee. The Upadhyaksha shall be the chairman of the general standing committee”. (4) Election of members of standing committee shall be held as soon as may be after the general election of members of Grama Panchayat or on its reconstitution or establishment under this Act or immediately before the expiry of term of office of the members of the Standing Committee. (5) The term of office of every member of the Standing Committee shall, other than ex-officio chairman be thirt y months from the date of the election or till he ceases to be a member of the Grama Panchayat, whichever is earlier. (6) (a) Each Committee shall consist of not less than three and not more than five members including the Adhyaksha and Upadhyaksha, as the case may be. (b) Each Committee shall be competent to co -opt in such manner as may be prescribed, members of farmers clubs, mahila mandals, yuvak mandals and other similar bodies recognized by the Government. A representative of co -operative societies i n the panchayat area shall be co -opted to the Standing Committee. The rights and liabilities of the co-opted members shall be such as may be prescribed. (7) The Standing Committees shall perform the functions referred to above to the extent the powers ar e delegated to them by the Grama Panchayat. ]1 1. Substitu ted by Act 44 of 2015 w.e.f. 25.02.2016.