The Hindu : Panchayats in practice

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Aug 22, 2003

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Panchayats in practice

OVER A DECADE after the 73rd Amendment to the Constitution was enacted, devolution of powers to Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) remains in many respects a distant dream. To be sure, grass roots bodies have now acquired a permanent place within the Indian state. Panchayats elect over three million representatives of whom one million are women and half a million belong to the Dalit and Adivasi communities. However, the failure to conduct periodic elections — a basic democratic requirement under the law — and the emergence of parallel structures are principal factors that have hampered effective decentralisation. With few exceptions, State Governments are guilty of not holding local elections on time (once every five years) as mandated under the law. Even when polls are conducted months and sometimes years after the expiry of the tenure of panchayats, this is usually after protracted legal battles between State Governments and non-governmental organisations. At another level, studies have found the experiment with local self-government in some reserved panchayats to be highly successful. There is also the contrasting reality of violence and atrocities committed by dominant caste groups against the electoral prospects of Dalit candidates. But the impediments to effective decentralisation are not restricted to the circumvention of the democratic electoral process.

Contrary to both the spirit and letter of the Panchayati Raj Act, the political and administrative power structures in different States have resisted moves to cede control of domains under their jurisdiction to local bodies. For instance, 12 States are yet to constitute the District Planning Committees meant to coordinate the programmes of panchayats at the village, block and district levels. The DPCs are responsible for decentralisation of powers in diverse areas including agriculture, irrigation, health and sanitation, education, electrification, and the public distribution system. The stance of the States is a cause for concern, for in the absence of accountability to an authority designated by law, developmental activity could be held hostage by vested interests at the local level. On another plane, the autonomy of PRIs has been crippled by the enormous overlap between their functions and those of the administrative machinery. As recently as in 1999, the Centre decided to vest the District Rural Development Agency (DRDA) with control over developmental activities at the district level. This is in clear violation of the 73rd Amendment Act, which stipulates integration of the functions of the DRDA with the Zilla Parishad. More recently, the Rural Development Ministry has brought elected Zilla Parishads under a nominated body, namely District Vigilance and Monitoring Committees headed by Members of Parliament. Additionally, in this era of competitive populism, there is no check on the overlap between Centrally sponsored schemes and the functions of panchayats.

Against this backdrop, the proposed amendment further to demarcate areas that should lie within the jurisdiction of panchayats is welcome. It is also important that the amendment sets out stringent penalties for malfeasance. At the same time, explicit provisions must be incorporated to ensure that the Centre and State Governments do not introduce fresh development schemes in areas that are already designated as the legitimate domain of PRIs. This will yield a twin advantage of undercutting the lure of populism in a big way and enhancing the status of self-governing institutions. Their permanence and reasonable guarantee of continuity is an irreversible achievement of the first decade of grass roots democracy. It is the demarcation of their sphere of authority vis-a-vis the Central and State Governments that needs priority attention.

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