Introspecting the Role of Gram Panchayat in Structuring Rural Economy: An Experience from Bhograi Block in Odisha during COVID-19

PRIs were established with a hope to strengthen the rural India. But during Covid-19, it was experienced that they were not even able to support for livelihood to the rural people. Even in the midst of pandemic, though there was life threat situation, people migrated to cities in search of their livelihood. In this backdrop, this paper highlights the available livelihood supportive infrastructure, livelihood generating base and livelihood supporting mechanisms and schemes and unutilized natural resources in the Gram Panchayats. Particularly, this paper focuses on the strength of Gram Panchayat’s self fund, schemes and activities excluding central and state government funding and schemes. The work is produced by the data from both primary and secondary sources. And to make it more scientific, both quantitative and qualitative methods are applied. For this work, Bhograi block of the district of Balasore in Odisha has been taken as area of study. From the study, it is experienced that there is available resources lying unutilised but due to lack of interest, attitude, commitment of the local representatives and officials of Gram Panchayat resources can’t be utilized to harness benefits for people creating jobs and engagements. Finally, some remedial measures like behavioural and attitudinal autonomy of the officials, political neutrality, constitution of Panchayat Development Council (PDC) etc. are suggested to over the problem.Keywords: Gram Panchayat, Rural Economy, Bhograi Block, Odisha, COVID-19