By Sauro Dasgupta
It’s not possible for the Centre to carry out the responsibilities of the provinces from a particular location. Therefore, the powers have been divided into three levels — the Centre, the State and the local levels. The local government is the grassroots level of the government and is very important for decentralisation of power. As India is a vast country, devolution of power at the local level would be a long-term solution to the problems of the people.
In India “local self government” refers to the grassroots governance trhough the Panchayat Raj Institutions at the local rural level and Municipalities and Municipal Corporations in towns and cities.
In ancient India, kingdoms rose and fell, despite which the systems of local self government, i.e. the Panchayats continued to exist for a long period of time till the advent of the British in India, who abolished the Panchayats and set up the district and local boards as units of local self government for the effective administration of the Indian countryside.
The entire rural government was brought under district level, entrusted to a district collector, an Indian Civil Service officer, who was made responsible for the good governance in the country. The provincial governments had absolute control over the district administration. After attaining independence, the Indian leaders tried to establish the dream of “local self government” or “Gram Swarajya” by reorienting the nature of the District administration. Several projects were launched to promote local self governance.
‘The Community Development Programme’ was launched in 1952 and was aimed at carrying out integrated rural development work. The network of administrative machinery was created quite strongly to initiate development all over India. The administrative machinery in every district comprised the block development officers (BDOs), the executive officers (EOs) and village level workers.
An informal three-tier Panchayat System was set up in 1959 in consonance with the recommendations of the Balwant Rai Mehta Committee.
In December 1977, the Janata government appointed a committee on Panchayati Raj institutions under the chairmanship of Ashoka Mehta. The committee submitted its report in August 1978 and made 132 recommendations to revive and strengthen the declining Panchayati Raj system in the country, which caused Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal to pass new laws on the same.
The next major change in the Panchayat system of India came in the form of the passage of the Panchayati Raj Act (73rdConstitutional Amendment) in 1992. A key motivation of this act was the belief that local governments may be better placed than centrally appointed bureaucrats to identify and respond to the needs of the village. Hence, this act was an important part of India’s move towards decentralisation.
Despite many successes it is a serious problem that the three-tier Panchayati Raj Institutions do not operate as functional authorities. There is a tendency of the higher levels to treat the lower levels as their subordinates. Hierarchical domination can be detected which filters down from zilla parishads to the village panchayats. This is typical red-tapism. There is an improper and unscientific distribution of functions among the structures at different levels.
To function effectively the Panchayats require complete freedom to direct and implement programmes which must be planned centralised and have great drive. The blending of these functions has questioned the autonomy of the Panchayats, almost converting them into the agents of the state governments, which is against their key principles.
The functions of the rural local self governments overlap, causing confusion shifting of responsibilities and duplication of efforts. The Panchayats’ powers and authority are too limited for them to become Institutions of self government in reality. They have no discretionary powers. In adequate finance is a crucial problem of the Panchayats.
A lot of money is required for developmental activities, though the sources of income of the Panchayats are very limited. The grants received by them are inadequate. A general reluctance has been observed among them to collect funds through taxes for fear of losing public popularity.
The Panchayats were introduced to provide effective public participation but as the key administrative and technical positions are manned by IAS officers who are under the control of state governments and hardly care for the local people.
There is a lack of proper coordination and cooperation between the Panchayat officers like the BDOs and the district collectors. District officials are approached by MPs and MLAs and pressurised by them to suspend or dissolve the Panchayat. Their over-dominance made them unpopular among the people. Personnel with expertise required for planning implementation and mobilisation of various schemes are usually not assigned to Panchayat Raj institutions, resulting in administrative chaos.
The bureaucrats, send to the Panchayats are inexperienced and usually opposed to the system as they are reluctant to work as subordinates to the Panchayat leaders and deliberately create obstacles in the smooth functioning of the system. The Panchayats are dominated by rich farmers, money lenders and upper caste people and in tribal belts ambitious tribal chiefs grabbed power. The illiterate and poor do not understand their rights.
Ignorance and poverty contribute to public apathy and lack of enthusiasm about Panchayats. Political parties have introduced the divisive spirit even in the Panchayat elections. The Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, women and minorities have no role in the functioning of the Panchayats.
However, since the 73rd Constitutional Amendment Act gave some reservation to these people, especially women, men forced their female family members to contest the Panchayat polls, though they hardly have a role in the Panchayats. It has been observed that the women members are ignored and harassed. In the case of a conflict between upper caste people and the Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes, the Panchayats invariably rule in favour of the former and the latter are tortured or killed, especially in North India and West Bengal.
There is an urgent need to ameliorate these problems. Rural India need forward looking leaders to rein in Panchayats in their hands. Local elections must be fought on a nonpartisan basis. They should receive more finance to d their work well. Political parties should nt be allowed to seize power in Panchayats and grossly inefficient and corrupt people should be brought to the book. A proper compromise between centralisation and decentralisation should be made.
The Panchayats should conduct themselves like legislatures and their activities should be controlled and supervised. Villagers should be educated and Panchayat members should be properly trained. These steps will enable us to get rid of the maladies affecting the Panchayats in the long run.
The system of administering a large country like India with a teeming population, comprising illiterate and inadequately educated people from the grassroots level under the Panchayati Raj system, has caused wonder which overwhelmed even the foreign dignitaries, who visited India to have a glimpse of the country’s administration at the lowest tier. They profusely applauded this globally unparalleled administrative echelon and unhesitatingly prescribed such a system for any developing and underdeveloped country of the world to have a firm basis of administration for the well being and uplift of its population.
(The author is a student of International Relations at
Jadavpur University,
Kolkata)
