Towards Holistic
Panchayat Raj
Panchayat Raj
Arguing that “bad
Panchayat Raj is perhaps worse then no Panchayat Raj”, the report stresses that
Panchayat Raj must not deteriorate into sarpanch raj. To this end, the Report
urges that PRIs be structured legally and administratively to function as
collegiate bodies, with all elected members being involved in preparing
programmes, key decisions being taken by the Panchayat as a whole and not at
the whim and fancy of the President, and implementation being under the
effective supervision of the Panchayat members concerned and not just the
sarpanch
It is not by coincidence that this article carries the same
title as our Report1, for this is by way of an introduction to a Report that we
believe should be essential reading for all those who would like to see the
fulfillment of Gandhiji’s dream for independent India. Replying to a query on
his “Dream for Independent India”, he wrote in his journal, Young
India, 10 September 1930:
“I shall work for an India in which the poorest will feel it is
his country, in whose making he has an effective voice”
This vision is inscribed on the cover of the Report and
constitutes its leitmotif.
There is no way in which the aam admi, let alone
the poorest Indian, can have a sense of belonging in a Parliament in which his
MP represents 15-20 lakh others, or an effective voice in decisions are taken
in remote State capitals or Delhi, let alone even in the inaccessible reaches
of the Collector’s office. 65 years after Independence, almost every Indian
feels alienated from the political and administrative process, the sense of
alienation being the greater the lower down the economic scale and social
hierarchy that person finds himself or herself in, and also the more distanced
he or she is geographically from the imposing Bhawans where his or her
future is decided. Six and a half decades of democracy leave most individuals
as distant from having an “effective voice” in the making of their country as
their parents and grandparents were under colonial rule.
The one ray of hope is a return to Gandhian first principles.
Gandhji wanted our democratic institutions to be built on the foundations of
Panchayat Raj, as evidenced in the 1946 publication by Shriman Narayan Agarwal,
A Gandhi Constitution for Independent India, that Gandhiji
himself endorsed in entirety in the Foreword he wrote to the book.
After many travails, Parliament eventually incorporated key
elements of the Gandhian vision in our scheme of government, by passing,
virtually unanimously, the 73rd and 74th amendments to the Constitution in
December 1992 followed by The Provisions of the Panchayats (Extension to
Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 [PESA] in December 1996, as required by Part IX(The Panchayats) of the
Constitution. The Constitution describes PRIs as “institutions of
self-government”, not self-governance, a distinction vital to the effective
empowerment of the Panchayats.
Nearly a quarter century later, we have some Panchayat Raj but
not “holistic” Panchayat Raj. Our Report aims at correcting that
deficiency. More specifically, it aims to ensure far greater efficiency in the
delivery of public goods and services by shifting the burden of bottom-up
planning and last-mile delivery to the Panchayat Raj Institutions (PRI) from a
bureaucratic mode of delivery that has patently failed.
How dramatically the present system of
delivery has failed is well illustrated by two sets of irrefutable facts.
One, whereas Central budgetary expenditure on social sector and
anti-poverty programmes has grown by 25 times since the onset of economic
reforms (from around Rs. 7500 crore in 1992-93 to over Rs. 2 lakh crore in the
current budget), our ranking on the UN Human Development Index continues to
hover around 135 as it did at the start of economic reforms. We appear to
be like Alice in Wonderland: the faster we run, the more we remain where we
were. The Report characterizes this as “treadmill growth”.
The second
set of facts derives from the Twelfth Five-Year Plan documents: that whereas
our economy has grown at nearly 8 per cent over the previous Plan period, the rate
of poverty alleviation, which languished at under 0.8 per cent in the
previous eleven years, is now averaging no more than 1.5 per cent per annum.
Thus, widening disparity and inequality has been compounded by gross failure to
make optimal use of the additional Government revenues generated by reforms
even if the Union Government has evolved over 150 Centrally Sponsored Schemes,
with very much higher budgetary allocations than could have been conceived of
25 years ago. This appalling waste of resources is much more disturbing than
the so-called “leakages” affecting subsides or even the falling growth rates in
the face of “stimulus” through revenues foregone in the amount of over Rs.25
lakh crore furnished to the productive elements of our economy since 2007.
Neither growth nor
justice will be secured without more equitable sharing of resources between the
70 percent “poor and vulnerable” segments of our population, identified
by the late Dr. Arjun Sengupta in his celebrated 2007 Report, and the
better-off segments of our people on whom we are increasingly relying to
enlarge the national cake.
While promoting equity in the distribution of incremental
national income falls outside the ambit of our Expert Committee’s Terms of
Reference, the more efficient delivery of public goods and services,
particularly the 29 public goods and services listed in the Eleventh
Schedule as the illustrative domain of Panchayat Raj, constitute the essence of
what we have to say.
We find that, notwithstanding the inclusion of many areas
covered by Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS) in the State List of the
Seventh Schedule, in practice, the bulk of the funding for these programmes
comes from the Central Government and is governed by CSS guidelines that are
astonishingly detailed and have to be adhered to if funding to States under CSS
is to be smooth and continuous. Indeed, one witness maintained that about 80
per cent of the work-time of a Joint Secretary in Delhi concerned with these
programmes is taken up in ensuring that installments are released and
Utilization Certificates (UCs) are examined in conformity with the guidelines.
Unfortunately, CSS guidelines only
very rarely oblige State governments to effectively devolve Functions,
Finances and Functionaries to Panchayat Raj Institutions. PRIs are
occasionally mentioned as an option but in such a passing and casual manner
that State bureaucracies prefer to themselves be the delivery agency or set
up parallel bodies to do their bidding as registered societies (whose accounts
are not subject to local or CAG audit). This leaches the entire delivery
system of any responsibility to the intended beneficiaries. In the absence
of accountability to the local community, and the transparency in transactions
that such accountability would impose, while vast sums of money are expended
and a widening network of gigantic mechanisms of delivery are devised, the
beneficiaries themselves are, for the most part, reduced to beggars with their
begging bowls or silent spectators to decisions that intimately impinge on the
welfare of themselves and their families.
Thus, the principal reason for the failure of our systems of
governance to make “the poorest feel it is their country, in whose making they
have an effective voice” is that, notwithstanding the 73rd and 74th amendments,
Panchayat Raj has little or no role in CSS. There are two exceptions to
this generalization: MNREGA, that has given a place under the sun to the
Village Panchayat (or, at any rate, to the village sarpanch) and the Backward
Regions Grant Fund that makes grassroots planning the “sine qua non”,
as Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh has said, of the BRGF. If district
planning in accordance with Constitutional provisions can be obligatory and
mandatory for the most backward districts of the country, why can this not be
done for the more advanced districts or, indeed, for other CSS in the same
backward districts?
This failure in CSS has attained the most
alarming proportions in tribal districts infected with Left-Wing Extremism
(LWE). Notwithstanding the searing indictment in the Debu Bandyopadhyay
Committee Report of 2008 on Development Challenges in Extremist-Affected
Areas of the maladministration of development programmes in
Fifth Schedule areas (that are almost co-terminus with LWE districts), the
Integrated Action Plan for LWE districts, now under consideration for merging
into BRGF, by-passes both Constitutional provisions as also PESA, thus
alienating the local community from participative development. Without
participative planning and implementation, there can be no inclusive growth.
Inclusive growth without inclusive governance is the inevitable consequence of
relying more on the bureaucracy and less on the people to set or attain
development goals.
Our Report emphasizes that, notwithstanding
various failed initiatives undertaken in the past decade, what appears to
fundamentally confound the higher echelons of the bureaucracy in orienting CSS
towards PRIs is an inadequate understanding of the processes involved in
effective devolution. Therefore, the heart of the Report is the presentation of
model Activity Maps for eight key CSS (National Livelihoods Mission ;
National Drinking Water Mission and the Sanitation component of the Nirmal
Bharat Yojana; Accelerated Irrigation Benefit Programme and Command Area
Development Programme; Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan ; National Rural Health Mission; Integrated
Child Development Services; Additional Central Assistance for Tribal Sub-Plans;
Rajiv Gandhi Vidyutikaran Yojana) to demonstrate how to ensure
an adequate role for PRIs in planning and implementation by devolving to them
the 3 Fs (Functions, Finances and Functionaries) in a scientific,
clear-cut manner on the basis of the principle of subsidiarity reflected
through the prism of the basic principles of sound public administration.
The principle of subsidiarity holds
that whatever can be done at a lower level must be done at that level and no
higher level. Reciprocally, the principle of subsidiarity also holds that
whatever cannot be done at a lower level must be done at the appropriate higher
level and no lower. To determine the appropriate level for any given activity,
the principles of sound public administration are invoked to provide for the
categorization of activities to facilitate the process of deciding the
appropriate level for devolution.
Where the Activity Maps included in Volume 4 of the Report go
further conceptually than earlier exercises is in their going beyond Functions
to also incorporate the parallel and simultaneous devolution of Finances and
Functionaries to provide the PRIs with the wherewithal to effectively and
efficiently undertake the duties that would devolve on them through the
mandatory inclusion in CSS guidelines of Activity Maps for each CSS. Thus, for
example, the Committee’s examination of the Guidelines for the Sarva Shiksha
Abhiyan reveal that, as per the extant Guidelines, some 325 “activities”
have to be undertaken before the teaching of “A for Apple; B for Ball” can even
begin. Of these, approximately 200 activities must necessarily be undertaken at
the Central or State level, and about 100 have necessarily to be performed at
the district or sub-district or individual school level. The Committee’s Model
Activity Map for SSA details which activity could ideally be attributed to
which of the six levels of government involved (Centre, State, district
panchayat; intermediate panchayat; village panchayat; and school-level)
without, however, losing expert technocratic support as the existing registered
societies (such as the School Management Committee) would either be brought
under the PRIs or established with an integral relationship to the PRIs to
render them accountable and responsible to the local community through
Gram/Ward Sabhas. The Map also details which activity would require what share
of finances and which agencies (Functionaries), bureaucratic or expert, for the
optimal performance of the task. The Report recommends that explicit provision
be made for all CSS Activity Maps to be projected as “models” to the States,
leaving it to the States to modify the Activity Maps to suit local conditions.
Thus, at the stage of implementation, Activity Maps would assume the character
of State-specific Activity Maps that can be adjusted over time at the
discretion of State governments or in consultation with the Centre, but all CSS
would have State-specific Activity Maps carving out the domain of the PRIs in
that State for each CSS.
The suggested methodology
for scientific devolution on the basis of objective criteria would end the
apparent confrontation between State interest and PRI interests that has
thus far stymied effective devolution. All six levels become cooperators in a
joint endeavour to secure best results. No one is left out; all are included,
and the Gandhian dream is progressively realised.
The suggested methodology also gives the lie
to the common perception, reflected in the Twelfth Plan document, that
Panchayat Raj being the responsibility of the States, there is little the
Centre can (or should) do to push matters forward. In fact, had there not been
the required “political will”, the longest and most detailed amendments ever to
the Constitution could hardly have been passed virtually unanimously in both
Houses of Parliament. If there were no “political will”, the approval to the
amendments of half the State legislatures required before securing Presidential
assent for the entry into force of the Bill would not have been obtained within
four months, as actually happened. If there were no “political will”, there
would not have been that large measure of adherence to mandatory
Constitutional provisions in respect of Panchayat Raj as has actually been the
case – such as the passage of State-level conformity legislation, regular
Panchayat elections, reservations, independent State-level election
commissions, State-level finance commissions, local and CAG audit and social
audit. Nor would we have seen as many as 15 States increasing reservations for
women from 33 per cent to 50 per cent, as has actually happened.
Finally, it needs to be emphasized that although the
pattern of devolution to PRIs has been extremely uneven, with some States like
Kerala and Karnataka (and, recently, Maharashtra) in the lead and others like
UP and Jharkhand as laggards, a bird's eye survey of Panchayat Raj over the
last two decades shows Panchayat Raj as advancing everywhere and some laggards
leap-frogging over more advanced States to give remarkable returns. Several
examples spring to mind: Kerala itself, that went in one leap in the second
half of the 1990s from virtually no Panchayat Raj to first position; Tripura that undertook the same Great Leap
Forward in the past decade; Bihar that has zoomed ahead in recent years
converting despair into hope; Haryana, Himachal and Rajasthan, that have made
remarkable progress. Some hill States like Sikkim and Uttarakhand have shown it
can be done; others like Arunachal Pradesh are still to set their house in
order. Some of the smaller States like Goa have performed well although
problems remain. The Union Territories, a Central responsibility, have been
among the worst laggards. Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat are
among the bigger States that had a head-start but have since stagnated. Barring
Maharashtra in recent years, all nine States with Fifth Schedule areas have
turned in a most disappointing performance in respect of implementing PESA
provisions. The list is incomplete, but illustrative of the important point
that 'political will' is not entirely lacking, as so easily assumed by many.
What is more relevant is that “bureaucratic will” has been woefully
lacking, especially in Delhi. The Report quotes at length from the
path-breaking inaugural address by Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh at the
first conference of chief ministers he convened within a month of assuming
office on “Rural Prosperity and Poverty Alleviation through Panchayat Raj” (29
June 2004) in which he laid out such a cogent and comprehensive road map for
Panchayat Raj that the Committee have adopted the Address as the template for
their own Report. Note is then taken of the Prime Minister’s directive to the
Cabinet Secretary to circularise all Secretaries in charge of CSS to modify
their respective CSS guidelines to bring them in conformity with Constitutional
provisions. The Cabinet Secretary did so on 8 November 2004, with the added
proviso that the exercise must be completed within two months and reported to
him personally.
That, alas, was the end. Three years later, finding that no
Central Ministry was taking the Prime Minister’s directive seriously, the Union
Panchayat Ministery persuaded the Cabinet Secretary to set up a committee
comprising a secretary from the Cabinet Secretariat and the Panchayat Raj
secretary to interact with their counterparts and produce the first round of
Activity Maps to facilitate effective devolution to the PRIs under their
respective CSS. 15 schemes were selected, accounting for more than two-thirds
of all CSS expenditure, and in full consultation with the secretaries
concerned, finalised and submitted to the Cabinet Secretary on 22 January 2008.
However, no action has followed. For the last five years, the exercise has
remained deadlocked with the Cabinet Secretariat saying it will not do it and a
hapless Ministry of Panchayat Raj pleading that it cannot do it.
The Planning Commission had evinced considerable interest in
taking forward District Planning as envisaged in the Constitution. A committee
was constituted under the chairmanship of the legendary champion of Panchayat
Raj, Shri V. Ramachandran, former Vice-Chairman of the Kerala State Planning Board.
Based on the V.Ramachandran committee recommendations, the Planning Commission
issued detailed guidelines to the State governments, saying all State plans had
to include the component of district planning before being brought to the
Planning Commission for approval. Unfortunately, the Planning Commission then
put its own guidelines into cold storage and now appears to have abandoned the
exercise altogether, notwithstanding the Manual for District Planning
circulated by the Planning Commission on 1 April 2009. The unanimous Report of
the NDC’s Empowered Sub-Committee on Panchayat Raj also languishes
unimplemented in the cupboards of the Planning Commission.
We thus see that it is bureaucratic recalcitrance rather than
any lack of political will that is the main hurdle. Alternatively, it is
perhaps bureaucratic ineptitude, a lack of understanding of the methodology for
effective devolution, that is holding up the appropriate modification of CSS
guidelines as ordered by the political authority nearly a decade ago. This
lacuna has now been filled by our Report demonstrating, with respect to eight
key CSS, how effective devolution can be promoted by ensuring the inclusion of
model Activity Maps in all CSS guidelines.
Besides Activity Mapping, the Committee have
undertaken a detailed survey of the policy issues and sectoral issues involved
in working towards “Holistic” Panchayat Raj. In successive chapters of the
first Part of the Report dealing with broad policy issues, the Report has
focussed on State action on devolution; the technicalities of District
Planning; the Finances of the Panchayats; the intricacies of training and
capacity building (the longest chapter in the Report); women in the Panchayats;
and disadvantaged sections of the population, such as SC/ST, people with
disabilities, and religious minorities in the Panchayat system, including, at
some length, the rampant transgression of the legal and constitutional rights
secured by the tribals through the Fifth Schedule, the 73rd amendment, the
Forest Rights Act and PESA.
In the second Part, the Report takes up
sectoral issues by compartmentalising CSS into seven chapters covering the
gamut of the subjects mentioned in the Eleventh Schedule. These relate to rural
livelihood; rural infrastructure; the productive sectors of the
rural economy; education; health; women-related programmes; and schemes for the
disadvantaged. The last chapter summarises the principal Observations and
Recommendations of the Committee.
It would be impossible to incorporate into an
article of 3500 words the range of recommendations in a Report running to 1500
pages and five volumes. But three sets of what the Report calls “Collateral
Measures” stand out.
First, arguing
that “bad Panchayat Raj is perhaps worse then no Panchayat Raj”, the
report stresses that Panchayat Raj must not deteriorate into sarpanch raj. To
this end, the Report urges that PRIs be structured legally and administratively
to function as collegiate bodies, with all elected members being involved in
preparing programmes, key decisions being taken by the Panchayat as a whole and
not at the whim and fancy of the President, and implementation being under the
effective supervision of the Panchayat members concerned and not just the
sarpanch. While this will secure transparency of transactions, it would also
enable accountability to the Gram/Ward Sabhas and the effective exercise of
social audit responsibilities by Gram/Ward Sabhas. The fulcrum of the system is
the Gram/Ward Sabha. It needs to be statutorily empowered to undertake
supervisory functions, reflecting community needs and community satisfaction
with the planning and implementation of schemes of economic development and
social justice as envisaged in Articles 243G and 243ZD read with the Eleventh
Schedule. The Report points to the “holistic” nature of the 73rd and
74th amendments and, therefore, the necessity for a holistic approach to
the implementation in letter and spirit of the provisions of the Constitution.
Second, the Report dwells at
length on the “sound finances” of the PRIs. Apart from important
recommendations for the functioning of State Finance Commissions and the
processing of SFC recommendations, as well as accounting and audit of Panchayat
finances, and measures to encourage PRIs to raise their own resources, the
Report commends successive Finance Commissions for having emerged as the single
most important source of untied funds for the PRIs. Stressing the importance of
incentivising, on the one hand, State governments to devolve, and, on the
other, for PRIs to adopt transparency and accountability in their transactions,
the Committee have requested the current Fourteenth Finance Commission to
raise the share of PRIs in the divisible pool from the present level of 2.5 per
cent to 6-7 per cent, and to restructure the current pattern to provide for
(i) basic and performance grants to States to incentivise them to devolve
and (ii) similar basic and performance grants to PRIs to incentivise them to
adopt transparent and accountable practices. This will both impart
stability to PRI finances and reduce the scope for corruption.
The third key set of “collateral measures” recommended relates
to the imperative of invoking all relevant provisions of the Fifth Schedule and
Part IX of the Constitution, and PESA/Forest Rights legislation, for thwarting
the growing menace of Naxalism, the single most important challenge to internal
security, as pointed out by the Prime Minister. Security measures, of course,
have their place in this task of national priority; so does development – but
neither will suffice unless participative development, based on inclusive
governance, as envisaged in PESA, is actualised. More than any other single
factor, is the failure to operationalise PESA that has resulted in so
serious a deterioration of security in Fifth Schedule areas; and as the
Centre has the right (and duty) under the Fifth Schedule to issue “directions”
relating to the administration of these areas, the Report recommends that in view
of the patent failure of most Fifth Schedule State governments to live up to
the promise of PESA, the Centre is obliged under the Fifth Schedule to take
matters in hand. If Naxalism is thwarted by recourse to PESA, a dramatic
example would follow for States to replicate to maintain democratic stability
at the level where it matters most – the grassroots.
Mani Shankar Aiyar The author is a Member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha after
having served three five-year terms in the Lok Sabha as also Minister of
Petroleum and Natural Gas (2004-06), Youth Affairs and Sports (2006-08),
Development of the North-East Region (2006-09) and Panchayati Raj (2004-09). He
was awarded the Outstanding Parliamentarian’ award. by the President in 2006.
He served for 26 years in the Indian Foreign Service (1963-89).
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