4- 73rd CONSTITUTION AMENDMENT ACT

11/30/2016 73rd Amendment of the Constitution of India, 1992 Summary
73rd Amendment of
the Constitution of
India, 1992 –
Summary
Article shared by
The Amendment Act has added part IX to the

Constitution of India entitled as ‘Panchayats’. The
part consists of provisions from Article 243 to
243-0. A new schedule called as Eleventh
Schedule lists 29 functional items that
panchayats are supposed to deal with under
Article 243-G. The basic provisions of the Act are
divisible into compulsory provisions and
voluntary arrangements.
The provisions which the state statutes will

have to provide for are:
(1) Creation of a State Elections Commission to

conduct elections to PRIs,
(2) In order to review the financial position of the

PRIs, each state to set up a State Finance
Commission for five years.
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(3) Tenure of PRIs fixed at five years and, if

dissolved earlier, fresh elections to be held
within six months,
(4) Creation of a three-tier Panchayati Raj

structure at the zila, block and village levels,
(5) The minimum age for contesting elections to

PRIs to be 18 years,
(6) Reservation for women in panchayats

(chairman and members) up to one-third seats,
ADVERTISEMENTS:
(7) Reservation of seats for SC/ST in panchayats

(chairman and members) in proportion to their
population,
(8) Indirect elections to the post of chairman at

the intermediate and apex tiers,
(9) All posts at all levels (with two exceptions) to

be filled by direct elections, and
(10) Organisation of gram sabhas.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
As local self-government is an item in the State

List, the state governments have been given a
reasonable discretion to take decisions in the
following areas.
These voluntary provisions vary from state to

state:
(1) Voting rights to MPs and MLAs in these

bodies,
(2) Reservation for backward classes,
ADVERTISEMENTS:
(3) Financial powers,
(4) Autonomy of the panchayats, and
(5) Devolution of powers to perform functions of

the Eleventh Schedule and planning.
The Eleventh Schedule of the Act enumerates 29

subjects which fall in the purview of the
panchayats. The Act has refrained from putting
those into the Seventh Schedule of three lists for
the simple reason that states are free to
determine the Panchayati Raj activities and
adjust this Eleventh Schedule as per situations
and resources. The Schedule is quiet flexible and
exhaustive.
The PRI can make rules, regulations and

administer them by creating services and
charging tax, cess, octroi, etc., in lieu of these
functional services. The Tenth Finance
Commission suggested grants-in-aid for the local
bodies from state exchequers to supplement
their efforts. The panchayati institutions can take

policy decisions in the areas like land reform,
ecology preservation, rural industries and
farming. The PR institutions have been accepted
as the implementing agency of the state
governments.
The Eleventh Schedule lists the following 29

subjects:
Eleventh Schedule:
(1) Agriculture including agricultural extension.
(2) Land improvement, implementation of land

reforms, land consolidation and soil conser-
vation.
(3) Minor irrigation, water management and

watershed development.
(4) Animal husbandry, dairying and poultry.
(5) Fisheries.
(6) Social forestry and farm forestry.
(7) Minor forest produce.
(8) Small scale industries, including food-

processing industries.
(9) Khadi, village and cottage industries.
(10) Rural housing.
(11) Drinking water.
(12) Fuel and fodder.
(13) Roads, culverts, bridges, ferries, waterways

and other means of communication.
(14) Rural electrification, including distribution

of electricity.
(15) Non-conventional energy sources.
(16) Poverty alleviation programme.
(17) Education including primary and secondary

schools.
(18) Technical training and vocational education.
(19) Adult and non-formal education.
(20) Libraries.
(21) Cultural activities.
(22) Markets and fairs.
(23) Health and sanitation, including hospitals,

primary health centres and dispensaries.
(24) Family welfare.
(25) Women and child development.
(26) Social welfare, including welfare of the

handicapped and mentally retarded.
(27) Welfare of the weaker sections, and in

particular, of the Scheduled Castes and the
Scheduled Tribes.
(28) Public distribution system.
(29) Maintenance of community assets.
The pre-1992 situation about PRIs was chaotic.

Most of the states did not bother about any
uniform pattern. The partisan character of the
state governments viewed Panchayati Raj politics
in terms of their support structures or
destabilising factors. In either case, they were
apprehensive of Union governments
intervention or opposition parties taking over
Panchayati Raj bodies.
The votaries of Panchayati Raj were states like

Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Gujarat and Kerala.
While other states like Rajasthan, West Bengal,
Uttar Pradesh and Punjab became lukewarm and
less enthusiastic about panchayat elections.
States like Bihar, Haryana, Orissa and Jammu
and Kashmir viewed the change with scepticism.
Hence the Union government has to proceed
with caution and the amendment was designed
to develop and keep the consensus in basic areas
of panchayati governance.
The salient features of the 73rd Amendment

can be presented as under:
The Gram Sabha:
The act provides that a gram sabha will consist of

persons registered in the electoral rolls of a
village within the area of a panchayat at the
village level. Thus, it is a village assembly
consisting of all the registered voters in the area
of the panchayat. It exercises such powers and
performs such functions at the village level as
the legislature of a state determines.
The Balwant Rai Mehta Committee made no

formal mention of the gram sabha but the gram
sabha was existing as a statutory body in almost
all the states. In states like Bihar, Orissa and
Rajasthan, all the adult residents of a village or a
group of villages are its members. The
membership of a gram sabha ranges from 250 to
5,000 and it meets twice in a year. The sabha
elects from among its members an executive
committee and the sarpanch presides over the
meetings. The budget, plans and programmes,
audit reports and progress reports of panchayats
are placed before this popular body.
The Sadiq Ali Committee which reported

about gram sabhas in Rajasthan in 1964,
pointed out the following weaknesses in their

working:
(1) Poor attendance, particularly of women.
(2) Absence of secretarial assistance, and
(3) Its meetings were not duly publicised.
(4) The illiteracy of villagers.
(5) The sarpanch avoided calling a meeting for

fear of being questioned.
(6) Meetings were held during the harvest

season.
The apathy and non-attendance of villagers in

gram sabha meeting has been a major issue of
criticism of PRIs. The Rajasthan state constituted
G.L. Vyas Committee in 1973 to rectify this
dysfunctionalism of the grass roots institution.
The Vyas Committee suggested:
(1) Compulsory attendance for the sarpanch in

meetings.
(2) Statutory recognition of gram sabha.
(3) The tehsildar, the naib tehsildaar and the

village school teachers should encourage
villagers to ask questions.
(4) The time of meetings to be May-June and

January-December.
(5) Compulsory attendance of the patwari and

VLW.
The activisation of gram sabha is a problem in all

the states. Officials attribute it to the apathy of
rural folks while villagers complain that
meetings are manipulated and decisions are
neither publically arrived at nor accountability is
fixed.
The 73rd Amendment has addressed itself to

this ailment and has provided the following
for activisation of this core institution:
(1) Public problems of the village will be

discussed and beneficiaries of welfare
programmes would be identified.
(2) The panchayat secretary will be the secretary

of the sabha also.
(3) Two compulsory meetings otherwise the

sarpanch will be asked to quit.
(4) The quorum of meetings will be one-tenth of

the total.
(5) Assistance to panchayat in the execution of

rural development schemes.
(6) Vigilance committee of the sabha will keep an

eye on the panchayats.
(7) The budget and programmes of the panchayat

will keep the suggestions of the sabha in view.
(8) A constitutional status to gram sabhas.
All this has improved the situation considerably.

The research indicates that it is not the apathy,
but the feeling that their will is being ignored,
makes them absent in the meetings. Now as
National Rural Employment Guarantee
Programme comes into operation, the
panchayat/gram sabha secretary cannot afford to
take grama sabha meetings lightly.
The community has to identify and certify the list

of beneficiaries and this will generate sustained
interest in the working of the gram sabha.
Government aid for national disasters like floods,
famine, quakes, etc., need rural support and
people increasingly realised the relevance and
importance of grama sabha participation.
The Three-Tier System:
The Union government has prescribed a uniform

three-tier system of panchayati institutions for a
period of five years.
The B.R. Mehta model remains the basic frame

and the Act defined the institutions as under:
(1) Panchayat means an institution (by whatever

name called) of self-government for rural areas.
(2) Village means a village specified by the

governor by public notification to be a village for
the purpose, and includes a group of villages so
specified.
(3) Intermediate level means a level between the

village and district levels specified by the gover-
nor’s public notification for this purpose.
(4) District means a district in a state.
Thus, the Act brings about uniformity in the

structure of Panchayati Raj throughout the
country. However a state having a population not
exceeding 20 lakhs may not constitute
panchayats at the intermediate level. All the
panchayati institutions are to be elected on the
basis on adult suffrage but the chairpersons at all
the three levels should be elected indirectly by
and from among the elected members. But the
state legislatures are free to revise this indirect
election pattern.
The Act provides for the reservation of seats for

Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in every
panchayat (i.e., at all the three levels) in
proportion of their population to the total

population in the panchayat area. Further, the
state legislature provides for the reservation of
offices of chairpersons in the panchayat at the
village or any other level for the SCs and STs.
It further provides for the reservation of not less

than one-third of the total number of seats for
women (including the number of seats reserved
for women belonging the SCs and STs). Further,
not less than one-third of the total numbers of
offices of chairpersons in the panchayats at each
level are to be reserved for women.
The Act also authorises the legislature of a state

to make any provision for reservation of seats in
any panchayat or offices of chairperson in the
panchayat at any level in favour of backward
classes. The term of office is five years but a
panchayat can be dissolved before the
completion of its term.
Further fresh election to constitute a

panchayat should be completed:
(i) Before the expiry of its duration of five years;

or
(ii) In case of dissolution before the expiry of a

period of six months from the date of its
dissolution. The Amendment Act prescribes the
qualifications and disqualifications of members

subject to revision by state legislatures.
The Act says that person shall be disqualified

for being chosen as for being a member of
panchayat if he is so disqualified:
(i) Under any law for the time being in force for
the purposes of elections to the legislature of the
state concerned, or
(ii) Under any law made by the state legislature.

However, no person shall be disqualified on the
ground that he is less than 25 years of age if he
has attained the age of 21 years. All questions of
disqualifications are referred to such authority
as the state legislature determines.
The Two Commissions:
The Parliament knew it for sure that elections

will be the real arena of discord and problems
may lead to crises and an early collapse of the
system. The Act envisions an election
commission in every state to ensure free and fair
panchayati elections periodically. It was quite a
challenging job to get elections conducted at the
grass-roots level.
The Election Commission of India could not be

involved in it but a similar and uniform model
on the lines of Election Commission of India
should be workable over a period of time. The

amendment is extra conscious of the sensitivities
of the states and to keep them in good humour
even the powers and the functions of these
institutions have been envisaged in a vague
manner with enough leeway for the state
legislations to fill up the blank functions and
powers.
The state legislature may endow the panchayats,

with such authority as may be necessary to
enable them to function as institutions of self-
government.
Such a scheme may maintain provisions for

the devolution of powers and responsibilities
upon panchayats at the appropriate level with
respect to:
(i) The preparation of plans; and
(ii) The implementation of schemes for economic

development and social justice as may be
entrusted to them, including those in relation to
the 29 matters listed in the Eleventh Schedule.
The state legislature may:
(i) Authorise a panchayat to levy, collect and

appropriate taxes, duties, tolls and fees;
(ii) Assign to a panchayat taxes, duties, tolls and

fees levied and collected by the state
government;
(iii) Provide for making grants-in-aid to the

panchayats from the Consolidated Fund of the
state; and
(iv) Provide for constitution of funds for

crediting all moneys of the panchayats.
The reformers were quite sanguine to the fact

that states will be unenthusiastic to endow
panchayati institutions with adequate resources
and the experiment may crash in the want of
funds. Political partisaness apart the
development work in rural areas may keep these
institutions starving for a long time and the local
leadership may get exhausted and frustrated in
the process of procuring resources.
The Constitution provides for a finance

commission for distribution of resources
between the Centre and states. Here the
resources were to be distributed between states
and panchayati institutions with a possibility of
federal grants-in-aid system. So the amendment
makes a statutory provision for the state Finance
Commission.
The governor of a state shall, after every five

years, constitute a Finance Commission to review
the financial position of the panchayats.
It shall make the following recommendations

to the governor:
(1) The principles which should govern:
i. The distribution between the state and the

panchayats of the net proceeds of the taxes,
duties, tolls and fees levied by the state.
ii. The determination of taxes, duties, tolls and

fees which may be assigned to the panchayats.
iii. The grant-in-aid to the panchayats from the

Consolidated Fund of the state.
(2) The measures needed to improve the

financial position of the panchayats.
(3) Any other matter referred to the Finance

Commission by the governor in the interests of
sound finance of the panchayats.
The state legislature may provide for the

composition of the commission, the required
qualifications of the members and the manner of
their selection. The governor shall place the
recommendations of the commission along with
the action taken report before the state
legislature. The Central Finance Commissioner
shall also suggest the measures to augment the
Consolidated Fund of a state to supplement the

resources of the panchayats in the states.
The state legislature has to make provisions with

respect to the maintenance of accounts by the
panchayats and the auditing of such accounts.
The 73rd Amendment applies on union
territories also, subject to exceptions specified by
the President of India. But it does not apply to the
states of Nagaland, Meghalaya, Mizoram and
Jammu & Kashmir for their special status and
tribal council situations already in existence.
The Panchayat Tier:
Although almost all states of the Indian Union

have passed necessary Panchayat Acts, still the
suggestion of ARC of having one panchayat for
one village of about 2,000 residents is far from
being implemented. Adult suffrage with social
justice reservations is a great step forward yet
the wide variety of patterns in the spectrum raise
many eyebrows. The reservation of women in
some states and disqualifying panchayat leaders
on the birth of a third child or absence of
supercession dissolution rules stand in the
working of panchayats in their initial years of
gestation.
Some of these frailties are obvious and can be

identified as under:
(1) An unhealthy electoral environment.
(2) Lack of proper state guidance specially that of

the revenue and police authorities.
(3) Sarpanchs and especially husbands of female

Sarpanchs dominate.
(4) Rules and procedures.
(5) Slow action against defaulters.
(6) Weak secretarial assistance.
(7) Poor financial resources.
The need, therefore, is to augment the resources

and establish ‘Gram Sachivalayas’ as suggested
by Shiv Charan Mathur panel of Administrative
Reforms in Rajasthan. The district secretariats
will give PRI a distinct identity and clarity of
rules and procedures will make the institutions
affective.
The Panchayat Samiti Tier:
The panchayat samiti or the block level

institution has been in great debate in the two
Mehta Reports. As a key functionary, the BDO has
been the centre of controversies. The variations
in power role and even in nomenclature
demanded a consensus.
In pre-1994 situation, the panchayat samiti

was known as:
(1) Mandal Panchayat in Karnataka
(2) Janpad Panchayat in Madhya Pradesh
(3) Panchayat Sangh in Tamil Nadu
(4) Taluka Panchayat in Gujarat
(5) Anchal Samiti in Arunachal Pradesh
(6) Kshetriya Samiti in J&K
The ARC suggested that the area of the block

should be coterminous with that of a tehsil or a
sub-division. The 73rd Amendment has
introduced the necessary uniformity.
The panchayat samiti today has two kinds of

functions:
(1) Primary functions such as, drainage, roads,

primary health centres and primary schools,
cultural activities and health services, and
(2) Developmental functions which may include

execution of development programmes, seeds
and fertilizers distribution, conservation of soil,
credit for agricultural purposes, irrigation
facilities, forests, cattle and fodder improvement,
cottage and small scale industries, etc.
To discharge these functions, the panchayat

samiti can seek people’s cooperation through
functional committees. The BDO who is
equivalent to the position of a SDO serves as the
executive secretary of the samiti administration.
The samiti can levy taxes, but the scarcity of
resources is a perennial grievance.
The Zila Parishad Tier:
Like panchayat samiti, the institution of zila

parishad had variation as strong and weak zila
parishads. Some status accepted it as the major
unit of rural development. Others like Haryana,
Madhya Pradesh and Orissa have underrated its
importance and have even tried to abolish it. The
names of the institution explain the nature of the
models.
(1) Assam Mahakama Parishad
(2) Tamil Nadu District Development Council
(3) Andhra Pradesh Zila Praja Parishad
(4) Gujarat District Panchayat
Ending the diversity in composition which

caused variations in roles, the new dispensation
makes it a directly elected body of the people
with a tenure of five years. Its functions and
roles have been delineated by the act in specific

terms.
According to the statute, the zila parishads

will:
(1) Advise state government on matters relating

to development in the district,
(2) Co-ordinate development plans prepared by

the panchayat samitis,
(3) Co-ordinate the work of panchayat samitis,

and
(4) Advise the state government on the allocation

of work to Panchayati Raj institutions.
(5) Examine and approve the budget of

panchayat samitis,
(6) Distribute funds to various panchayat samitis,
(7) Issue directions to panchayat samitis for

efficient performance of their duties,
(8) Inform the divisional commissioner and the

district collector about irregularities in PRIs,
The chairman of the ZP, called as Zila Pramukh is

an indirectly elected functionary but happens to
be a member of the parishad. He is accountable
to the zila parishad which can remove him by a
vote of no-confidence. It is around this pivot that

the future pattern of Panchayati Raj will revolve
in the states.
The role of the collector vis-a-vis zila parishad is

the key issue and his relationship with the
District Rural Development Agency (DRDA) has
already heralded the change. The Administrative
Reforms Commission, in its report on state
administration has recommended that “the
developmental function should be transferred
from the collector to the zila parishad and a
whole-time senior officer be appointed as the
chief executive officer of the zila parishad.
This officer be designated as the district

development officer and he should exercise
supervisory control over the district level officers
of various development departments and the
technical and non-technical staff of the zila
parishad. The district development officer should
work under the leadership and guidance of the
zila pramukh.”
The 73rd Amendment enables the legislatures of

the states to enclow panchayat bodies with the
powers and responsibility to prepare plans for
economic development and social justice. It will
cause a steady increase in the developmental
powers and functions of this apex body.
The Services without a Sachivalaya:
The existing personnel system in Panchayati Raj

administration is a mixed and open one which
can be called a transitional arrangement till
regular cadres of PR bodies are recruited by
some qualified recruiting agency. The state
officials who are working on deputation or
whose services have been loaned cannot run the
autonomous local government institutions and
what has happened thus far is a story of
continuous conflict between strong bureaucracy
and weak democracy.
The district collector and his team of SDOs or

BDOs has to be kept out of the Panchayati Raj
institution because their very presence as
managers of development or captains of
extensions officers team or administrative
secretaries of elected bodies destroys the very
spirit of democratic decentralisation.
The experience of practically all the states of the

country denotes that state level officers have
their prejudices and even a petty village level
worker treats the panchayat as a pocket borough
for his depredations. Secretarial assistance or
some sort of a gram sachivalaya is a necessity
and the deputation arrangement should soon has
to replaced by a regular cadre of Panchayati Raj
administrators at every level.
Naturally, the state level civil servants do not like

this change and the solution lies in asking the
State Public Service Commissions to screen state
official for final absorption in Panchayati Raj
service cadres – senior as well as junior.
The Financial Management of Panchayats:
Presently the financial administration of all PR

bodies is also run by state official on deputation.
The VLW, the BDO and the secretary, zila
parishads are acting as finance officers
responsible for maintaining accounts books,
records and registrars. The ARC anticipated a
situation when panchayati institutions will be
financially autonomous and viable.
An independent system of panchayati accounting

and panchayati audit is a precondition to run the
system. The half-heartedness of state officials
and lack of political will on the part of state
leaders have created an anomalous situation
because of which the inbuilt control of state
officials over PRIs has rendered them ineffective.
The present arrangement of personnel and
budget management cannot be tenable and all
kinds of controls through state bureaucracy have
to be replaced by a new system of accountability
and democratic working.
The institutional, administrative, financial and

technical control of state government over
Panchayati Raj bodies is inimical to the spirit of
the 73 rd Amendment. Even coordination by
state authorities or institution will be far from
the intention of the reformers. Like the 1919
dyarchy, the reserved half of district government
is making a bid to foil the democratic working of
the transferred half in the name of coordination
through structural arrangements and common
work procedures.
The Gestation Period:
It is too early to evaluate the working of

Panchayati Raj in India. A decade is hardly a time
to appreciate the potentialities of the institutions
suffering from teething troubles. The legacies of
community development administration are not
healthy. The district administration presents the
entire experiment with a jaundiced eye.
The prejudices have been rationalised to the

extent that failures have been declared much
before the launching of the reform. Research
indicates that state level political leaders are the
real villains of peace. They talk from housetops
about the inevitability of decentralisation, but
are extremely suspicious and nervous in parting
with power.
They see the erosion of their roots in panchayati

elections. Once these institutions get roots the
parachuting of state and national leaders will
become difficult. So they keep talking about
district development councils and the alibis that
go with district developmental planning.
The 73rd Amendment offers a big opportunity

to create the third tier of parliamentary
government in India’s Federal Scheme, but the
obstacles in place of being removed are being
created by:
(1) MPs and MLAs of the states,
(2) Cabinet ministers in the states,
(3) Civil servants at each level, and
(4) Village leaders of caste, class and community

who see threat to their established position in the
change.
The Frailties of the System:
Although panchayati elections in almost all the

states have been a phenomenal operation and PR
institutions have settled down to normal working
without adequate resources and much-needed
infrastructure.
Still, the problem areas of the frail structure

and their working can be identified as under:
(1) Poor local leadership based on narrow

sectarian considerations of caste without much
vision and far sight. The social justice class
arising from reservations of varieties tends to
push the real deserving outside the pale of power
in the rat race for scrambles.
(2) Financial crunch, partly because of the lack of

state support and partly because of unwill-
ingness of newly elected leaders to tax their
voters.
(3) Women leadership through reservation at the

grass-roots level, where their husbands and kins
play a pernicious role because of the male
dominant joint family system.
(4) Apathy of district administration to prove

their indispensability and convince the common
villager that their own local leaders are no match
to urban educated outsiders.
(5) Partisan character of local elections which are

neither factional nor programme based. The
electoral system of higher bodies has
criminalised local politics and politicised the
petty crime.
(6) The malpractices in panchayat working go

unpunished because of the lack of procedures
and arbitrary punishment system has become
operative in the discretionary pockets in the

absence of traditions and clear-cut rules.
(7) Practically all the schemes of development

and social welfare are routed to panchayati
institutions through the district administration. It
makes the former a second fiddle and the
legitimacy of panchayati institutions has suffered
in the process.
(8) In spite of all provisions of constitutional

amendments, the states have been authorised to
transfer powers, finance and responsibilities to
the panchayats. The constitutional amendment
leaves everything to the self-thinking of the
states. But, the bitter truth is that the indifferent
attitude of the states has been responsible for not
giving a chance to develop democracy at the local
level.
Therefore, the success of the constitutional

amendment depends on the fact that how far the
Centre and the states inspired by the public
spirits, implement honestly the provisions.
(9) It is still feared that as the narrow politics of

the vote has made the biggest democratic institu-
tions of the country useless and bonded to rule,
least the Panchayati Raj institutions should meet
the same fate.
(10) Some critics are of the opinion that the new

panchayat system is the same weak effort as was
done to revive the panchayats by adding one
directive to the Principle Directives of the Consti-
tution. As per the 73rd Constitutional
Amendment, the states have framed different
rules to implement it. These provisions, perhaps,
would make it obligatory for the states to hold
panchayat elections and the economic basis of
the panchayats would comparatively be more
clear but these provisions would not give a much
needed lease of life to the panchayats.
(11) There is no provision to establish “Nyaya

Panchayats” or “Gram Nyayalayas” in the
amendment. Giving concessions as per
differences of the local groups of the state, the
constitution and the jurisdiction of these village
courts should have been clarified.
The Innovative Approach for 2020:
The cumulative impact of all this has rendered

the PRIs lame and defunct. They are begging for
their due before the officials of the state. The
coalition experiments at the Centre and the
different political parties ruling the states, have
created problems of hung legislatures, wherein
panchayati pockets are seen with suspicion and
scepticism. In the meantime, the rural world is
metamorphosing under the impact of

liberalisation and globalisation.
The literacy rate has touched an all time high and

connectivity revolution of mobile phones and
computer internet is the rural market of the
future. The mass media has already made in
roads and the rural urban distinctions are disap-
pearing fast in terms of development
facilitations. The vested interests in status quo
cannot fight this inevitability of change.
But its speed can be accelerated if Panchayati

Raj institutions are revamped with a vision.
Innovative bold approach to rural governance
can rebuild a ‘Developed India’ by 2020, if the
following amendments or reforms are
expedited in the panchayati experiment:
1. The federal government initiates a massive

programme of central aid to three selected
districts from each state every year on a rational
basis merging the MP and MLA funds in the
federal aid programmes. If it is done, the
scenario will be visibly changed by 2020.
2. All district development planning is handed

over to zila parishad committee co-opting experts
and local participants which should involve
private sector philanthropists and entrepreneurs
to take up individual projects on BOOT or BOLT
basis under the co-ordinational supervision of

zila parishads. The district administration should
totally be withdrawn from development projects.
3. The financial resource allocation, though a

responsibility of state finance commission, but it
should be linked with National Finance
Commission and one of the expert members
from the National Finance Commission should
take care of the quantum of grants-in-aid from
the state.
4. The state development service for PRIs should

soon be constituted and the ‘Gram Sachivalaya’
on the pattern of state secretariat be created at
district level to formulate and implement policies
of zila parishads with a feedback from below.
5. An office called as Panchayati Lokpal may be

created in each state to hear complaints and
ensure an objective implementation of rules and
regulations including the suspension and super
cession of elected bodies of Panchayati Raj. If it is
deemed as expensive, the district and sessions
judges may perform this job as an additional
charge.
6. A Gram Nayalaya as recommended in the

Desai report of Law Commission may be estab-
lished at panchayat samiti headquarters to take
care of panchayati litigation with a right to
appeal to the district and session judge and the

High Court.
7. Panchayati training programmes should be

organised at district level and below. Trainers
may go to panchayat headquarters and the state
should look after ‘Trainers’ Training’ and
‘Research and Reform’ on the basis of feedback
reports from the trainees. Practical aspects of
training on the spot should be emphasised.
8. The state government along with experts from

Union government should evaluate the
achievements of PR institutions every fifth year
after elections and instalmentally transfer more
and more regulatory functions from the district
administration.
9. The experiment of district development

committee with collector as secretary should be
tried in those border areas where integrated
development of the district includes the efforts of
rural and urban local bodies.
Towards Panchayat Parliamentarianism:
Needless to mention that panchayati

experiments needs goodwill, courage and
optimism on the part of all involved. In 1950,
India did not deserve democracy but given the
opportunity the countrymen have proved worthy
of it. Rural India needs a second war of Indian
independence against her own urban elites. The

policies of liberalisation and privatisation have
started creating the rural infrastructure.
Now, there are only three alternatives left for

rural governance:
(1) A district level three-tier of panchayati

parliamentary democracy with a zila pramukh as
a sort of district CM, alongwith a cabinet but
without a governor. The modalities may differ
and change with the passage of time.
(2) A merger model of district administration in

Panchayati Raj governance in coming fifteen
years as was envisaged in Digvijay Singh Model
for Madhya Pradesh.
(3) Continuation of dyarchy and parallelism of

regulatory and developmental governments with
clearer demarcations of jurisdictions.
A serious effort in this direction was made in

1999 when the Congress government of Chief
Minister Digvijay Singh took the initiative and
made a declaration for the adoption of district
government in Madhya Pradesh. From district
administration to district government was hailed
as a big leap and a detailed legal plan of action
was announced to introduce district government
by expanding the District Committee System of
74th Amendment.
It assigned a new role to the collector and one

cabinet minister in charge of the district
government to take the district government
closer to the people. Originating from the Kanha
Plan, the concept was debated at various levels
and the institutional shape was envisaged
through extended delegation of tasks, powers
and responsibilities to the district committees
and various kinds of sub-committees in different
spheres of administrative activities at the level of
the district and below.
The idea was to make the dyarchy workable and

push the transitional charge towards a positive
institutionalisation of democracy at the grass
roots. The Digvijay Singh Model as it is called,
clarified relationships and exhibited confidence
in the capability of the people, whose problems
were to be resolved without shuttling between
district headquarters and the state secretariat in
the capital.
The midway approach tried to satisfy all by

reconciling the conflicting claims of panchayati
leaders, district level bureaucracy and the people
down below the line at the grass roots. The
purpose was to create conditions conducive for
change and the scheme was launched with usual
fanfare and honest commitment.
But then, it was a political decision and each

political party viewed the entire transitional
arrangement in terms of its own perspective and
political spoils. The BJP government of Uma
Bharti felt terribly concerned and even alarmed.
She decided to abrogate. The Act and the whole
talk of district government vanished with a
whimper. The change of district government has
to have political repercussions, but the political
leaders of all political parties have to sit down to
work out details under the leadership of the
Union government.
The dyarchy that is being practised today is

faulty in principle, faulty in planning and faulty
in practice. It is unnatural, artificial and betrays
confidence in people. At best it can be justified as
a transitional measure, because the rural folks,
who can take decisions about development
cannot be called incompetent to control their
policyless and the revenue administration of the
collectorate.
The second alternative of merging the district

administration into panchayati democracy is
being debated and several modalities are
emerging. The collector can be the chief
secretary of the district ruling set up. The elected
political leaders may be trained for some time
but the district bureaucracy should know it for
sure that their days are numbered.
There is no point in lengthening the travails of

transition and creating bad blood or bitterness in
the process. The parliamentary system of the
third lowest tier should not be a copy of the
central or state tiers. It will be a grass roots
democracy with a difference at the district and
then again at block and village levels.
From gram sabha to Lok Sabha was a Jai Prakash

model and Indianising India’s rural democracy
requires an optimistic dent in the district system.
Debureaucratising rural governance and vesting
popular representatives with power to shape
their own destiny by 2020 will be the triumph of
the second war of Indian Independence which
aims to liberate rural India and replace district
bureaucracy by parliamentary democracy.
Urban Local Self-Government in the District:
The Patliputra of Mauryan age may be a

romantic lore of Indian history but urbanisation
as a phenomenon of social and political living is
a legacy of the British Raj. Having settled down at
sea ports, the East India Company unconsciously
developed the rim land and the port towns for
their sea faring commercial ventures. Calcutta,
Madras and Bombay were the direct outcome of
this policy.
The spells of urbanisation and later

industrialisation gave birth to urban centre, like
Ahmedabad, Surat, Bhadonch, Coimbatore,
Madurai and Paradweep. After independence,
almost 30 per cent of country’s population has
migrated to big cities like Kanpur, Chandigarh,
Bangalore, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Lucknow, Ranchi
and Bhopal. The former cities have become
metropolitan towns and new megalopolises are
developing around as satellite metro centres of
Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai.
These urban centres are a part of the district

system of government, yet their distinctiveness
exits because of population, modes of
employment, need of community services and
facilitation infrastructures. They are absolutely
different from the rural areas.
Traditionally, a village has been defined as:
(1) A cluster of houses with a population of

10,000 or less.
(2) A social habitation where most of the people

make their living by producing from the farms.
The Blurring Divide
In fact, an urban area is marked by the state

government under law. Traditionally it is a poor
place where most of the people live like a village
family, sharing a common culture and traditional
life patterns. As the concept of rural

development alleviates rural poverty and means
of communication provide connectivity and
mobility, the rural urban divide is becoming
blurred and untenable.
The big and sprawling villages are emerging as

towns and perhaps after a decade or two, the
town culture will take over the rural culture. To
arrest this mass migration from Agraria to
Industria is one of the biggest challenges of
development. The transitional phase is being cut
short by programmes of mass literacy, rural
electrification and women’s empowerment.
Naturally, the divide will remain for some time

and a further divide may follow between metro
cities and urban centres. The legacy of the British
Raj in this field will provide the base but a new
urban India in contrast to a panchayati rural
India will develop on different lines.
The Historical Perspective:
The 74th Amendment Act, 1992 represents the

culmination of efforts that were going on in
British India since 1687. The company and later
on the Crown’s government made some abortive
attempts to streamline the urban system as it
obtained under their rule.
The following landmarks deserve mention:

1687:
The Madras Corporation was born
1726:
The Calcutta and Bombay Corporation were

created
1870:
Lord Mayo’s resolution visualised financial

devolution to local institutions
1882:
Lord Ripon, the father of local staff government

gave the Magna Carta of local self-government
1909:
Hobhouse Commission on decentralisation

brought local bodies in the limelight
1919:
Local bodies were handed over to a responsible

Indian minister under the dyarchical reforms in
the provinces
1924:
The British government got the Cantonment Act

passed by central legislature
1935:
Local self-government declared as a provincial

subject under provincial autonomy
All this could not help urban local bodies to get

their due. Except in metropolitan towns of
Madras, Bombay and Calcutta, the municipalities
and other urban local bodies were only notional
in their working. The Constituent Assembly did
not show any concern to local problems – rural
as well as urban.
It was as late as 1985 that the ministry of urban

development was created. Even today, the
defence ministry and home ministry are the
nodal agencies that deal with cantonment
boards, and the urban bodies in union territories
respectively.
Some of the landmarks of post-independence

era reflect the casual concerns of Union
government which appointed the following
committees and commissions to examine
urban local problems:
(1) Wittal Local Finance Enquiry Committee 1951
(2) John Mathai Taxation Enquiry Commission

1954 .
(3) Ahmad Committee on the Training of

Municipal Employees 1965
(4) Jain Committee on Rural-Urban Relationship

1966
(5) Zakaria Committee of Ministers on

Augmentation of Financial Resources of Urban
bodies 1968
(6) Committee on Service Conditions of Municipal

Employees 1968
(7) Gajpati Committee on Budgetary Reforms in

Municipal Administration 1974
(8) Sahay Study Group on Constitution, Powers

and Laws of Urban Local Bodies and Corpora-
tions 1982
(9) Correa National Commission on Urbanisation

1988
Today, legally speaking when India’s urban

population stands in the neighbourhood of 35
crores, i.e., around 33 per cent and above it is
obligatory on every government to manage this
transformation from rural to urban settlements.
Several task forces on planning and development
of towns and cities (1975), strategies of urban
development (1982) and housing and urban
development (1983) have made their

recommendations.
The concern of these study groups in varied

areas has resulted in the creation of National
Commission on Urbanisation (NCU). The
commission examines issue and problems
pertaining to urban management, spatial
planning, resource allocation, urban housing,
conservation, urban poverty, legal frameworks
and information systems.
The commission has recommended that: every

town with a population of more than 50,000 be
provided with an urban community
development department, for the processing of
development programmes. A National
Urbanisation Council should be set up to
formulate and implement urbanisation policies.
For this the Ministry of Urban Development will
have to be restructured and made a nodal
ministry.
An Indian Council for Citizen’s Action can

encourage citizens through voluntary effort.
Consequently, the Ministry of Urban
Development was set up in the Union
government and urban development was shifted
to the ministry of works and housing which was
later renamed as the ministry of works, housing
and urban development. Urban development
was again shifted to the ministry of planning,

works, housing and urban development in 1967
and a separate Ministry of Urban Development
started functioning under a cabinet minister of
Union government since 1985.
The 65th Amendment systematised the urban

local reforms but it was lost in the Rajya Sabha.
However, the basic provisions enshrined in this
amendment were taken up by Narsimha Rao
Government in 1992. The two houses of the
Parliament and the requisite number of vidhan
sabhas approved it and the President of India
gave his assent to this 74th Constitutional
Amendment Act of 1992 and it was placed on the
statute book on June 1st 1993.
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11/30/2016 73rd Amendment of the Constitution of India, 1992 ­ Summary

The Amendment Act has added part IX to the

The provisions which the state statutes will

(1) Creation of a State Elections Commission to

(2) In order to review the financial position of the

(3) Tenure of PRIs fixed at five years and, if

(4) Creation of a three-tier Panchayati Raj

(5) The minimum age for contesting elections to

(6) Reservation for women in panchayats

(7) Reservation of seats for SC/ST in panchayats

(8) Indirect elections to the post of chairman at

(9) All posts at all levels (with two exceptions) to

(10) Organisation of gram sabhas.

As local self-government is an item in the State

These voluntary provisions vary from state to

(1) Voting rights to MPs and MLAs in these

(2) Reservation for backward classes,

(3) Financial powers,

(4) Autonomy of the panchayats, and

(5) Devolution of powers to perform functions of

The Eleventh Schedule of the Act enumerates 29

The PRI can make rules, regulations and

their efforts. The panchayati institutions can take

The Eleventh Schedule lists the following 29

(1) Agriculture including agricultural extension.

(2) Land improvement, implementation of land

(3) Minor irrigation, water management and

(4) Animal husbandry, dairying and poultry.

(6) Social forestry and farm forestry.

(7) Minor forest produce.

(8) Small scale industries, including food-

(9) Khadi, village and cottage industries.

(10) Rural housing.

(11) Drinking water.

(12) Fuel and fodder.

(13) Roads, culverts, bridges, ferries, waterways

(14) Rural electrification, including distribution

(15) Non-conventional energy sources.

(16) Poverty alleviation programme.

(17) Education including primary and secondary

(18) Technical training and vocational education.

(19) Adult and non-formal education.

(21) Cultural activities.

(22) Markets and fairs.

(23) Health and sanitation, including hospitals,

(24) Family welfare.

(25) Women and child development.

(26) Social welfare, including welfare of the

(27) Welfare of the weaker sections, and in

(28) Public distribution system.

(29) Maintenance of community assets.

The pre-1992 situation about PRIs was chaotic.

The votaries of Panchayati Raj were states like

The salient features of the 73rd Amendment

The Gram Sabha:

The act provides that a gram sabha will consist of

The Balwant Rai Mehta Committee made no

The Sadiq Ali Committee which reported

pointed out the following weaknesses in their

11/30/2016 73rd Amendment of the Constitution of India, 1992 Summary