A workshop on local self governance in Indian constitution under the auspices

of Speakers’ Research Initiative (SRI) was organised on 8th August, 2017 in the

BPST Main Lecture Hall, Parliament Library Building.  This was 15th Workshop of

SRI in 16th Lok Sabha and 2 nd under the constitution category in ongoing

monsoon session.

The workshop began on 1600 hrs with welcome speech and introduction of the

speakers by Shri Rahul Dev, Honorary Advisor to SRI.  Justice (Retd.) Shri V.S.

Kokje, Advisor to HS acted as the moderator for the workshop.  While

introducing the subject he highlighted the contribution of local self government

institutions and leaders emerged from them in the freedom struggle.  He said,

even the current speaker Smt. Sumitra Mahajan started her career as a

corporator.  He highlighted the journey of Panchayati Raj institution in free

India, landmarks achieved in 1992 and issues and challenges in contemporary

times.  After his inaugural remarks he invited Shri S.M. Vijyanand, (Retd.) Chief

Secretary, Govt. of India to deliver his talk on the topic. 

SHRI S.M. VIJAYANAND: The modern local governments, arose out of the

industrial revolution basically to provide sanitation and water supply and

though India had panchayat from time immemorial, the modern local

government laws including panchayat  laws were made by the British more or

less fashioned on the British local government law.  During the freedom

struggle, as has been mentioned by the Justice, there was a very interesting

debate between local self-government and national self-government. The

freedom fighters wanted national self-government and British were willing to

give local self-government.  Because of that, probably, local self-government is

not treated as very important when India became independent.

He said, unfortunately, India has been missing all the opportunities for

strengthening local self-governments at both urban and rural level. Early days

of  freedom was a great opportunity.  We left it. We did not implement the

Constitution in the beginning.  Planned development started in 1952 and

Panchayat were not given any space in the First Plan. In 1959, there was a lot of

enthusiasm after Balwant Rai Mehta Committee gave its report and panchayat

raj was inaugurated but only three States followed it up seriously, namely,

Maharashtra, Gujarat and Rajasthan but then Rajasthan went back and

Maharashtra and Gujarat have reasonably good panchayat raj.In 1960s we lost a

whole decade  due to the wars and food crisis.  So, the focus was on technology

and agricultural production and not on local governance.  In 1977, after the

Ashok Mehta Committee report, there was again some enthusiasm but here

again, it was lost. When government fell and this was followed up only by West

Bengal, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh but Andhra Pradesh withdrew after

sometime. In the mid 1980s,  there was a lot of talk of power to the people, the

constitutional amendment could not be passed.  In 1991, the economic reforms

came and at that point of time, several people said that for economic reforms to

sustain, you need governance reform.  But we did not spend much time on

governance reforms.  The 73rd and 74th amendments brought in a

constitutional mandate for local governance and it raised a lot of hopes.  But in

the rural areas, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Sikkim and Himachal Pradesh only

followed it up to some extent.  Most other States did not follow up.  

Expressing his concern he added, in urban areas no State has given more

powers after the 74th Amendment. In 1996, the Panchayat Extension to

Scheduled Areas Act was passed by Parliament. But even after twenty years, its
implementation is still very rudimentary. In 2004 the Ministry of Panchayati Raj

was created with a lot of hope, but nothing much could be achieved. In 2005,

the MNREGA Act came into being giving panchayat a lot of powers, but here

again much could not be achieved.  Now, again there is a bit of a hope because

the 14th Finance Commission has given Rs. 2,00,292 crore only to gram

panchayat. So, if that is combined with the MNREGA resources from 2015 to

2020, panchayat will have Rs. 4,00,000 crore. So, this opportunity can be used to

strengthen panchayati raj.

                        While assessing the implementation of the constitutional

provisions he said, Interestingly, the first article in the Constitution in part 9,

after the definition, deals with gram sabha. I think, gram sabha meeting of

electors and meeting of voters is there only in the Indian Constitution. But

unfortunately studies have proved that gram sabhas are not functional in most

parts of India. Hardly 10 to 20 people attend the meetings. Though the

Constitution says powers can be given to gram sabhas, but the function is very

weak. But there is a way forward. Now, a lot of self-help groups are coming. In

about 1,500 blocks, self help groups are there. They represent the bottom half

of the population. If they could be motivated to attend gram sabha meetings

then probably the poor, the women can reap the benefits. In the municipal

areas, there is no gram sabha concept. But there is a concept called ward

committees. That is article 243 (S). municipalities are there for three lakh and

more population. That is more of a democratic body. Wards Committees do

exist in many States, but they are also very weak and they have not been given

very important functions. Section 243 (b) speaks about ‘constitution of

panchayat’. Except Nagaland, Mizoram and Meghalaya, in 26 States of India and

all the Union Territories we have panchayat.  Municipalities are there in these

States.  But there is one weakness. The size of the panchayat has not been

mentioned. So, the size of the panchayat in India varies from less than 1,000 to

more than 75,000. "This is a very important feature. Unless you have panchayat

of viable size, you cannot give them staff, you cannot give them functions, and

you cannot give them meaningful powers and resources". So, in India, especially

in Central India, panchayat are sub-optimal in size. That is the decision of the

State. The Government of India cannot do anything. That is part of the

constitutional freedom given to the States.

In the urban areas, there is a concept of a transitional area, smaller urban area

and a larger urban area. All are called municipalities. There is a concept of nagar

panchayat. This is very critical in India because India is moving from rural to

urban areas. But unfortunately the nagar panchayat are the weakest. There is

no norm. That is not the weakness of the Constitution. The Constitution says,

the Governor the State shall lay down the norms as to what is a transtitional

area, what is a smaller urban area, and what is a larger urban area. "To my

knowledge, very few States have done it. So, they just make nagar panchayat.

Undo it. Make it and undo it. So, the nagar panchayat are the weakest. They are

almost non-functional in India. But I would say that this is the most critical

institution". With that marks the transition from rural to urban area and they

have to change the transition. Otherwise, by the time it becomes municipality

we cannot do anything in our urban areas. So, the problems we face in urban

areas can be solved if there is an effective nagar panchayat and there is a

nationally accepted system for defining what is a nagar panchayat. Of course,

funds are also needed. My neighbouring State, Tamil Nadu, abolished nagar
panchayat because panchayat get a lot of money from the Government of India,

but nagar panchayat do not get any money from the Government of India. For

this reason many States are not creating nagar panchayat.

Explaining the provisions of reservation in Local Self Governance he said,

though the Constitution mandates only one-third of seats to be reserved for

women, barring six States, all the States, on their own, have brought in 50 per

cent reservation for women. Those six States are Arunachal Pradesh, Goa,

Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Manipur and Uttar Pradesh. They have only one-

third reservation for women. All the other States have brought, on their own, 50

per cent reservation for women.There is a need to amend the Constitution so

that the remaining States also have 50 per cent reservation for women. There is

one more important point on which a lot of thinking is required and that is, only

few States like Tamil Nadu have done it and that is rotation of seats. Now we are

changing the rotation every five years. So, women and people belonging to the

Schedule Castes and Scheduled Tribes who get elected cannot contest in the

same constituency because that seat becomes de-reserved. So, there is a

suggestion that we need to extend this to 10 years so that women can contest

again which means you can strengthen women and the Scheduled Castes and

Scheduled Tribes as they can come back to power. Once they come back to

power, there is a chance that they would be empowered more. Otherwise, after

five years most of them vanish. Now, there is again a Constitutional Amendment

proposed for this purpose.

                        Quoting some studies on the effect of reservation and deeply

rooted patriarchy in the institutions of panchayat. He said, The Prime Minister

himself mentioned about the pati concept i.e. the Sarpanch pati concept. It is
very bad. Now, the study shows that things have improved but very slowly in the

last 20 years. But women seem to perform better. There are studies which

indicate that they look after the softer aspects of development, they are closer

to the people and they are far less corrupt. Explaining the concept of 

delimitation he said, That is again a big issue because delimitation is done every

Census. It alters the boundaries of the constituencies and that has an

implication for accountability, In contrast for Parliament and Assembly,

delimitation is done very rarely.

                        On the issue of  educational qualification for election he added,

"Though the Constitution has disqualifications, it has not  prescribed it.  Many

States have prescribed it.  But I personally feel that it is better that no

educational qualification is there for fighting an election".

                        He further highlighted that  the biggest achievement of our

Constitution is  free and fair elections to these bodies.  Before that, in many

States of India, the local Governments were there run by offices for 15 years, 20

years.  My own State of Kerala, for 18 years, did not have any elected local

Government.  But now, every five years, elections have to be there.  Even if you

are having a break for some reason, beyond six months you cannot have an

administrative rule.  So, this is being followed all over India; and now, we have

elected panchayat everywhere.

                        Elaborating on some important articles like article 243G for

panchayat and article 243W for municipalities he said, a lot of people as the

Justice (Rtd.) Shri V.S. Kokje said, that the article is supposedly weak. The

objectives are clearly set.  The Constitution says that the objective is economic

development, which is well understood.  But more significantly, the Constitution

 says the social justice.  But social justice is not defined; and it is for us to give

meaning to that term.  But the weakness seems to be there.  The article says:

‘States, may, by law.’  It is the ‘may’ in question. So, whatever you do, if the States

do not give powers, nothing can be done; and the assessment of experts is that

powers are much less all over the country. The powers of local Governments

urban and rural are much less than powers of similar bodies in the developed

countries.  They vary hugely across the country. It says: ‘may, by law, endow

powers and authority’.  The Constitution uses the two words – powers and

authority. Even the judiciary has not had any occasion to define what is

‘authority’ and what is ‘powers’ and what is ‘institution of self-Governments’.

                        He concluded with few suggestions and said some of these could

be directly taken up by Parliament and some of which could be pushed by

Parliament through the Central Government.

1. The share of local Governments, urban and rural, in Government expenditure is

50 per cent in China, 28 per cent in South Africa, 20 per cent in Brazil and in India it is

about 6 to 7 per cent.  It is actually 3 per cent; now because of NREGA and 14th Finance

commission, it is expected it has gone up to 6 per cent or so.  So, the countries which

are equivalent to us, Brazil, South Africa and China, are spending lot of money through

local Governments. 

2. The Central Finance Commission will have to give money to the States based on

the recommendations of the State Finance Commission. But since States have not been

constituted with State Finance Commission, this recommendation is not being

implemented by the Union Finance Commission. So, they had recommended that they

should reduce the time so that they can synchronize and this is accepted by the Union

Cabinet.
3. Another area where they could be strengthened is a normative human resource

support to the panchayat that is staff support.  Normally, the Government of India has

nothing to do with the staff support of panchayat. But we are giving a lot of money;

under NREGA – 6 per cent, 14th Finance Commission – 10 per cent, PMAY – 4 per cent

and all this. We are giving the money but if we pool this money, probably the local

Government thing could be done.

4.   Parliamentary Committees are normally ministry related but I know that there

is one Committee on Women which cuts across ministries.  If there could be a

Parliamentary Committee on Local Governance cutting across all ministries, not just

urban development and rural development and Panchayati Raj, that will give a lot of

push to local Government as the consent and not as a Departmental activity.

Prof. Y.K Alag: He said local self-Government really started in the freedom

movement and we must remember that some of our great leaders Subash

Chandra Bose, Jawahar Lal Nehru , they all cut their political teeth in local self-

Government. This all started with the Government of India Act, 1935. He said

that still there are instances of State and District Administration superseding the

panchayati Raj Institutions. The present business of the relationship between

strengthening Local Self-Government and the relationship with planning goes

back to the 72nd and 73rd Amendments which were initially discussed in the

late 80s of the last century and then implemented in the next decade because of

which there is now defined responsibility for the  third tier of Government. So

that added on teeth to it which it earlier did not have.

He also discussed the issues of Allocation, Devolution, Utilisation of funds. Citing

examples from Gujarat he said, he have seen people managing resources on

their own in case of resources not divulged to them or paucity of funds. Adding

on he also cautioned about the misappropriation of funds at panchayati level if 

vigilance is not observed. He talked about the concept of elasticity of panchyati

raj resources to district income. He said there is a correlation between the

spending ( capital expenditure) at district level and tax collection at Panchayat

level.

Touching upon the Role of panchayts in Land Legislation he said panchayat can

play a significant role in tenancy legislation. Local bodies should be encouraged

in this regard . This should be taken as a challenge as to how to integrate

panchayat into newer development that are taking place in India. Posing a

question in this regard he said  "How can you integrate local bodies with growth

impulse of the country in the ratio 1:5?. India is going to grow at a rate of 7 per

cent to 8 per cent. It will grow at the rate of six and a half per cent if you fail but

it will grow at 8 per cent if you succeed. So, in this growth, how do you see your

panchayat? To me, that is a central question. Now the growth agent should be

integrated. That is why, I am saying that those organisational forms which are

leading the growth process, whether they are farmers producers’ group,

whether they are self-help cooperatives, whether they are artisan groups, those

should be integrated with the panchayat. The panchayat should be a place

which helps them, which creates the infrastructure. Where there is healthy

competition between panchayat, to get it not in the other village but in their

village, we want to make the panchayat, the local Government a live part of the

India that is emerging in this decade".

He concluded by saying that there is a need to revive the institution of 

panchayat by focusing on their autonomy, ability to generate funds, utilisation

of funds, participation of masses, training , regular elections, evolving

partnership, synergy between different stakeholders etc.

Intervention by Shri Ajay Mishra Theni, MP: said Shri Vijayanand mentioned

that Local Self Governance Institutions worked well before Independence. Its

only after 1991 that the constitutional amendment came, all the developed

countries have strong local self governance institutions. Regular elections needs

to be conducted for these institutions to truly succeed in their objectives. He

said in Uttar Pradesh one panchayat secretary has to listen to four or five gram

sabhas which make it difficult for them to contribute qualitatively as they are

overburdened.

Response by Prof. Y.K. Alagh:- giving an example of Gujarat, he said panchayts

used to be apolitical institutions earlier. Politics or political affiliations of the

people did not affected the institutions. He said regular elections should be

conducted for better functioning of these institutions. Simply because they are

from the other party, it doesn't mean that we have to remove them.

Intervention by a Hon'ble Member, MP:- He said that "District Magistrate

should not supersede. The Direct benefit transfer scheme sounds very nice. It is

aimed to check corruption in the country. We have more than one billion

population. Every individual beneficiary gets the money directly credited in his

account from the centre itself. It is not a kind of suppression of powers of the

local Self Government Institutions who are projected as the democratic bodies".

Response by Prof. Y.K. Alagh:-  The technology could be used to transfer

resources from Local bodies to Individuals also. As the NITI Aayog has said, you

have got every individuals name and addresses. You have the socio-economic

census. So, your local self government can become completely effective because
you can transfer resources in a transparent manner. You have talked about

management of resources giving the example of some panchayats.

Shri Rahul Dev, Honorary Advisor, SRI thanked the Resource Persons for sharing

their experiences and vast knowledge on the subject and candidly addressing to

the emerging dimensions of the subject matter.

The Workshop then concluded.