Local democracy at work

Headline : Local democracy at work

Details :

Details: Local democracy at work

It’s been 25 years since decentralised democratic governance was introduced in India by the 73rd and 74th Constitution Amendments, which came into force on April 24 and June 1, 1993, respectively. It’s time to look back at the performance of this act and what need to be done to make it more effective.

Structural reforms by passing 73rd and 74th amendments:

• The structural reformsthat followed heralded an inclusive, responsive, participatory democracy which was tasked to deliver economic development and social justice at the grass-roots level. These reforms did not mean de-concentration or delegation. They were not even variants of fiscal federalism, which is much-theorised by Western public finance pundits and generally endorsed by their Indian counterparts.
• The creation of lakhs of “self-governing” village panchayats and gram sabhas, with over three million elected representativesmandated to manage local development, was a unique democratic experiment in the contemporary world.
• Parts IX and IXAof the Constitution, introduced following the two Constitution Amendments, initiated a process with standardised features such as elections every five years; reservations for historically marginalised communities and women; the creation of participatory institutions; the establishment of State Finance Commissions (SFCs), a counterpart of the Finance Commission at the sub-national level; the creation of District Planning Committees (DPCs); and so on.

Poor facts about implementation of this act:

• Local expenditure as a percentage of GDP is only 2 per cent compared with the OECD (14 per cent), China (11 per cent), and Brazil (7 per cent).
• Even after 25 years, local government expenditure as a percentage of total public sector expenditurecomprising Union, State and local governments is only around 7% as compared to 24% in Europe, 27% in North America and 55% in Denmark.
• The own source revenue of local governments as a share of total public sector own source revenue is only a little over 2% and if disaggregated, the Panchayat share is a negligible 0.3% (several States like Rajasthan, Punjab and Haryana have abolished property taxes and others do not collect taxes). This speaks of the fiscal weakness of village panchayats.
• Given the unprecedented growth of the economy over the last 25 years, its limited success in ensuring primary health care, access to drinking water supply, street lighting, education, food security etc.
• The media and mainstream economists who get nervous when there is even a small slippage in the quarterly economic growth rate have been silent on this social failure in local democracy. I
• Indeed, the village panchayats have not succeeded in enhancing the well-being, capabilities and freedom of citizens.

A systemic failure:

• While the economic reforms were championed by the political class and received support from the bureaucracy, there was no perceptible hand-holding and support by the States to foster decentralised governance.
• From the beginning, whether it was postponing elections or the failure to constitute SFCs and DPCs, it became evident that States can violate the various provisions of Parts IX and IXA with impunity. It appears that the judiciary has been indifferent to the two momentous amendments and their potential.
• There was no institutional decentralizationexcept in Kerala. The roles and responsibilities of local governments remain ill-defined despite activity mapping in several States.
• States control funds, functions and functionaries, making autonomous governance almost impossible.
• Parallel bodies: Most States continue to create parallel bodies(often fiefdoms of ministers and senior bureaucrats) that make inroads into the functional domain of local governments.

For example, Haryana has created a Rural Development Agency, presided over by the Chief Minister, to enter into the functional domain of panchayats. Legislative approval of these parallel bodies legitimises the process of weakening decentralised democracy.

• In States like Gujarat, the DPC has not been constituted.
• Despite the reservation of seats for Adivasis, Dalits and women, these categories remain on the periphery, often as victims of atrocities and caste oppression rather than as active agents of social change.This means that involving women’s agencies and the marginalized to lead social transformation at the grass-roots level remains an uphill task.

Structural lacunae in Panchayats:

• Adhoc meetings –lack of clear setting of agenda in gram sabha, gram samiti meetings; there is lot of adhocism; no proper structure.
• Proxy for reserved seats:Landlord and relatives many a times give proxy for SC/ST’s and women.
• No secretarial support –No dedicated cadre of people or service is working for Panchayati raj. This make administrative and documentation work very difficult.
• Low technical knowledge –has restricted the aggregation of planning from village to block to district to state to centre. Hence bottom up approach of planning is very limited.
• The 13th Finance Commission made significant steps to carry forward decentralised governance by linking the grants to local governments to the divisible pool via Article 275 besides taking various measures to incentivise the process of decentralisation.

The way forward:

• Adequate training:to develop expertise in the members so that they contribute more in planning process and in implementation of policies and programmes.
• Social empowerment:must precede political empowerment. Only then problem of proxy members could be solved.
• Devolution of powers:Decentralization of governance can be achieved with devolution of power to lower levels. More financial resource generation powers should be give to these institutions.
• Qualifications criteria:Certain minimum qualification standards, as set recently by Rajasthan and Haryan, for fighting Panchayat elections will help in improving its effectiveness in governance mechanism. Recently some states like Rajasthan and Haryana introduces such provisions, which was held to be constitutional by the Supreme Court. But it should be done only when state has already ensured universal education.
• There is a need of stricter regulatory frameworkby the State Election Commission in checking out the role of money and muscle power; in defining the code of conduct to be followed by the political parties.
• Sustainable decentralizationcomes from the demands of the people and advocacy should focus on a decentralization agenda. Indeed, the framework needs to be evolved to accommodate the demand for decentralization.
• Only education and knowledge, and pro-active interventions by emancipatory socio-political movements, can help achieve this. The media can also play a significant agenda-building role in bringing this about.
• All these provisions in the constitution as well as the government policies are right steps towards the Dr. B. R. Ambedker’s and many more leaders dream of achieving not only political democracybut also social democracy in which giving voice to the voiceless society. We need to take these steps to make our Panchayati Raj Institutions, effective centres of local governance.