A Short Note on Panchayati Raj and Municipalities

India is a democratic country that has three levels of governance: National, State, and grassroots.
And these grassroots levels are governed by Panchayati Raj and Municipal Institutions that
together are referred to as the Local Self Government.

The Panchayati Raj

ActConclusion

Local Self Government is the management of local affairs by the natives

of that area or their representatives, wherein the roles of Panchayati Raj
and municipalities come into play, in which the former is concerned with
the ruralbody whereas the latter is concerned with the urban body.

The Balwant Rai Mehta Committee was set up in 1957 to

recommend the three-tier structure of the Panchayati Raj—village
level, block level, and district level.

The constitution also divides the urban governance of municipal

institutionsinto three types in every municipality: municipal
corporations or Nagar Nigams; municipalities or Nagarpalikas and
Nagar Panchayats.

Let’s understand the roles of Panchayati Raj and municipalities in detail.

The Panchayati Raj Act

The Panchayati Raj came into force on April 24, 1993. The 73rd
Amendment declared the three-tier system and also that the states with less
than 20 lakh population are given an option not to constitute Panchayat at
intermediate orblock level.
At the Village Level – Under the Act, two bodies have been set up at the
village level – Gram Sabha and Gram Panchayat
Gram Sabha: It is the centre of local self government at the village
level. It comprised all the registered voters in the Panchayat area. The
Gram Sabha then elects their President, Gram Pradhan.

Functions of Gram Sabha –

1. To approve the budget for the year

2. To scrutinise the last year’s audit report
3. It looks after the activities regarding the village
Gram Panchayat: It is the execute wing of Gram Sabha that makes
sure all the objectives of the Sabha should be realised. Now, the
Panchayat does notnecessarily have five members, it depends upon the
state population.

Functions of Gram Panchayat –

1. To look after the civic facilities such as safe drinking water, health
and sanitation etc.
2. To look after the welfare of education, women, youth and children.
3. To look after the developmental functions such as irrigation and
ruralhousing.
4. To manage the regular administrative and judiciary functions.
At the Block Level – The block or intermediate level governance is looked
after by the Panchayat Samiti. At present, there are approximately 6000
PanchayatSamitis in our country
Panchayat Samiti – It is an intermediate body that coordinates all the
activities and business of Village Panchayats. In Uttar Pradesh, these are
referred to as ‘Kshetra Samiti’ while in Madhya Pradesh it is called
‘Janapada Panchayats’.

Functions of Panchayat Samiti –

1. To manage the regular developmental functions and civic facilities

such ashealth programmes, water supply, agriculture and social
welfare like Angadwadi.
2. To supervise the work of Gram Panchayats
3.To handle the delegated functions
At the District Level – The apex body that governs the district level is
called Zila Parishad that coordinates the activities of various Panchayat
Samitis. InAssam, Zila Parishad is called ‘Mohkuma Parishad’

Functions of Zila Parishad –

 1. To look after the civic and welfare functions such as maintenance of
public properties.’
2. The Zila Parishad supervises the activities of Panchayat Samitis
and the Gram Panchayats.
3. The Zila Parishad advises the State Government to look after the
needypeople in rural areas.
4. To undertake the developmental functions such as irrigation schemes
and public distribution system.

Limitations of Panchayati Raj

Unethical means such as money laundering and over power are adopted
inthe elections, lack of adequate financial resources and excessive
official control and interference are some of the limitations.

The new legislation has brought some improvements into the roles
ofPanchayti Raj and municipalities which hope can be better
towards Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, women and
children.

The Role of Municipalities

Now, before learning about municipalities, let’s first understand the

structure of urban local self-government. The Municipal Corporation, or
better known asNagar Nigams, is an elected body that looks after the civic
affairs of large cities such as Delhi, Agra, Varanasi, Lucknow, etc., while
municipalities, or nagarpalikas, are elected bodies that look after the civic
affairs of small townswhere the population is between 20,000 and 3 lakhs
approximately.

The functions of municipalities are studied under two main heads: obligatory
functions and discretionary functions.

Obligatory Functions

1. The municipality is responsible for maintaining hospitals and

sanitation. Italso looks after the quality food production and cleaning
of public lanes.
2. The municipality is responsible for providing safe drinking water
and electricity for domestic and commercial use.
3. The municipality establishes primary and secondary schools and also
helpsyoungsters to create aptitude for sports and other activities.
4. The municipality is assigned for public work which includes
construction ofroads, community centres and halls.
5. The municipality also maintains an account of birth and deaths in cities.

Discretionary Functions
 1. These activities include establishing libraries and reading rooms,
construction of stadiums, organising exhibitions and fairs, transportation
facilities etc.
2. They are responsible to organise employment schemes for weaker
sectionsof the society and also a provision for housing and slum
clearance programmes.
This concludes the roles of Panchayati Raj and municipalities. Now,
let’sunderstand the difference between them.

Difference between Panchayati Raj and Municipality

The difference between panchayat raj and municipality is that the former is a
process in which people participate in their own governance at the village
level, whilst the latter is an urban local government that strives for the
development of a city. Both of them are divided into three zones and carry
out
almost similar functions subjective to their area of governance.

Conclusion

So far, we have learnt that the local self-government looks after the
grassrootsof the country, which includes Panchayati Raj and Municipal
Corporations. As explained above, the roles of Panchayati Raj and
municipalities have been clearly defined by our Constitution. The structure
of the two is based on the size of their governance and hence has been
clearly outlined with their individual responsibilities. The only difference
between Panchayati Raj and
municipalities is that the former strives towards the development of
ruralbodies while the latter is for the urban.