(taken from The Deccan Herald, 13/4/07)

 

Karnataka is a pioneer in panchayat raj, but it missed several opportunities to excel.

By Manohar N Kulkarni

The recently concluded conclave, of nearly 1,300 panchayat raj leaders of the state, organised by the Institute of Social Sciences in memory of the late Abdul Nazir Sab — the architect of panchayat raj in Karnataka — ended with a bitter note of discontent and anger.

Karnataka pioneered rural governance in India, based on the spirit of gram swaraj and devolution of powers to the people. But in the last two decades panchayat raj governance is based on fooling the rural people in the name of decentralised governance. Funds allocated to panchayats are used elsewhere, making the functionaries to disregard the directions of elected panchayat members. Funds are allocated in the state budget to panchayats but access to treasuries is denied. Parallel bodies to panchayats to execute rural works are set up and the list of “state actions” to weaken panchayats goes on.

The Panchayat Raj Act of 1993 was a great piece of legislation to usher in decentralised governance. Ramakrishna Hegde, abdul Nazir Sab and M Y Ghorpade struggled hard to legislate many aspects of rural governance by delegating, devolving and decentralising as many as 29 functions of the state. But we have missed those opportunities.


Bypassing panchayats

Just take three Fs — functions, functionaries and funds — where we have not done anything substantial to strengthen the panchayats. In the recently announced Suvarna Gram Yojana (SGY), with a plan outlay of almost Rs 90,000 crore, village panchayats have been totally bypassed. The powers to select grams have been given to NGOs. Why not the gram sabhas decide the grams (villages) for SGY? The NGOs are now the new social contractors and they are treated better than elected gram panchayat members.

Many watershed programmes are also entrusted to NGOs and the selection of NGOs for SGY has been exempted from the Karnataka Public Contribution Transparency Act, 2000.

As many as 50-60 functions affecting the rural people have been enumerated to be managed by the panchayats. The cardinal principle, to quote Mr Ghorpade, is that “what is appropriate at a given level of the three tier system (VP, TP and ZP) should be done at that level and not unnecessarily at a higher level”. This simple principle is being violated in the last two decades because of the power-sharing politics of MLAs, MPs, and bureaucrats at all levels.

The MP’s Local Area Development Scheme has created more duplication. Road work and construction of community halls are done under MPLAD funds only to show the nameplates of MPs than the utility of these structures. Land Army contractors are trusted more than the panchayat president and hence rural voters lose faith in their elected representatives.


Autonomy a myth

Even simple rules of accountability and responsibilities are denied to panchayat members. K Yashodamma, an advocate and member of the Kolar Zilla Panchayat says, “autonomy” in the panchayat raj governance in Karnataka is only found in a dictionary. A ZP member is not even a joint signatory to the cheques issued for the works in the ZP area. The CEO and CAO sign the cheques.

The tenure of panchayat members, rotation of the seats for different caste and communities, etc are all in a mess. One is not sure if one is eligible to contest the elections, from where, and with what consequences. If MLAs and ministers can remain in office for five years or till the Assembly is dissolved, why not the members of VPs, TPs and ZPs. Why should they rotate their chairs in favour of others from time to time without continuity of their work?

According to Union Panchayat Raj Minister Mani Shankar Iyer, Karnataka has always been a case of two steps forward and one step backward regarding rural governance through panchayats. We have missed several technological and global opportunities that could have taken forward the dream of gram swaraj and good governance through democratic decentralisation.

 

 

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