Doable mandate for Gram panchayats
Accountable and Performing
Gram Swaraj not utopia
Gram Swaraj not utopia
Vanam Jwala Narasimha Rao
The Hans India (08-11-2017)
With about
1,04,000 local level People’s Representatives, 16,000 Panchayat Raj employees,
30,000 Safai Karmacharees and Rs. 12,000 crores of budget what the Panchayat
Raj System is delivering to the people in Telangana is a million-dollar
question. Perhaps, if only a practicable, doable and socially responsible
Panchayat Raj Act aiming at a Good Village Concept, as the requirement of the
state is brought in, then, there is a possibility to change the system.
SK Dey who was
India’s first Union Cabinet minister for Cooperation and Panchayat Raj is
remembered as the man who pioneered and steered community development in
independent India. He firmly believed that democracy cannot be practiced by
government servants and stressed that the fruits of democracy ought to reach
every village. Dey’s commitment to developing grassroots democracy prompted the
then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to hand over the reins of Rural
Development in newly independent India to him. After Nehru’s death, Dey
resigned from the ministry and dedicated his time to build Panchayat Raj
institutions in the country. His pet project was the Community Development
Programme the concept of which was rooted in his belief that the community
could help itself rather than looking “towards the government as Mai-Baap.” His
model of community development is characterized by a three-pronged strategy
namely, “development of the area”, “coordinated administration” and “development
of the individual and the community”.
Panchayat Raj
which thus was a community development movement later was politicized and
compartmentalised. Gone those days when there were community radio sets in
every village and sarpanches were involved in educating people on various
developmental activities that the state and centre takes-up. This is exactly
what the Government of Telangana and the CM KCR has in his mind when he wants
to totally rejuvenate the Panchayat Raj system in the state. A performing and
functional panchayat raj system where it will be a self-driven and village
driven is what he thinks to bring in. The system should be totally revamped and
restructured for better results including an accountability clause for village
level officers and local body representatives. It requires a surgical treatment
as it is totally an ailing structure now. The whole thing should be viewed
as a process driven approach rather a program driven approach. In this backdrop
we need to think of an Act in the context of Telangana State and the prevailing
situation in Telangana and that is how the duties and responsibilities are to
be included in the Act.
Whatever any
government does at the macrolevel or at the state or central government level,
will not be effective, until and unless it is done at the microlevel or at the
local or grassroots level. Sarpanches the real epitomes of grassroot level
panchayat Raj system over a period in Indian Local Self-Government have
turned-out to be through great anarchy, the best example of which is, none of
them ever bothers to even conduct a gram panchayat meet or Gramsabhas meet
which is a constitutional obligation. It is a rare phenomenon for any village
to go for a local audit also. All villages look like dumping yards with all
sorts of garbage and debris scattering all over and the sarpanch never-ever
bothering about it. The sarpanches instead of attending to their constitutional
and societal obligations concentrate more on contracts and petty contracts
which is the money earning mechanism. The same is the case with the MPTCs and
ZPTCs.
Of late
sarpanches started shifting their total responsibilities on to MLAs and hold
them to ransom. They question them as to what they have done to his or her
village as if it is their job. For instance, the prestigious green cover
program, the Telangana ku Haritha Haram, which envisages involvement of local
leadership, is totally neglected by sarpanch and gram panchayat. They are
seldom aware that the program aims at planting 40,000 saplings in every village
for which there are adequate nurseries. We don’t find either a graveyard or a
dumping yard or a cleanliness mechanism in the village. Villagers never pay
house tax. The weakness of government in getting these done is that they are
political. As a result, the whole panchayat raj system has met with a serious
accident requiring a fresh beginning to it from scrap.
Against this
background the state government wants to conduct elections to panchayat raj
institutions before the present term of sarpanches expires on 31st
July 2018. Prior to that the government thinking is to increase the number of
Grama Panchayats by 4000 to 5000 so that the total would be anywhere 13,000 to
14,000. Thandas, koyagudems and chenchugudems will be converted as Gram
panchayats. Depending upon its size the government would be providing funds
ranging from Rs. 10 Lakhs to Rs. 25 Lakhs to each panchayat. In addition,
through different sources the Gram Panchayats will be encouraged to mobilize
its own resources. Since any Finance
Commission will be sympathetic to local bodies the next Commission may allocate
and keep sufficient funds at the disposal of local bodies and panchayat raj
institutions.
For all this it
is absolutely necessary to totally revamp the Panchayat Raj Act. The Act shall
empower the Government to remove the sarpanch whenever it wants on grounds that
he or she is not performing as required. Ultimate idea is to bring in a
Performing and Functional Panchayat Raj System. The sarpanch either has to
perform or perish. The Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao is keen to present a
performing panchayat raj system to the people, experiment with that and get
excellent results at the grassroot level before the general elections are held
in 2019. This also envisages a comprehensive training program to all the
elected sarpanches and their deputies in the gap period between their election
and their assumption of office. This would equip them with the concepts and
what should be the real performing panchayat raj system well before they take
over the reins. The whole Panchayat Raj system will be accountable, transparent
and citizen friendly. In all probabilities the legislation to this effect will
come in the present Assembly Sessions itself.
The Act should envisage
quality monitors and performance indicators. It should enlist all that a gram
panchayat requires to do in the existing situation. The villagers’ current
needs need to be analysed and a citizen charter like model need to be followed
to make the sarpanch a functionary sarpanch and a performing sarpanch. The villagers’
needs will have to be made as Rights of them and they will have to be made
mandatory for the sarpanch to attend to. The proposed Panchayat Raj Act should reflect this for
the all-round development of the village. The proposed Act should also make the
local bodies function efficiently and the government should have the powers to
take action against erring local body representatives. END
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