The concept of local self Government is a very old model in India. It attained its pinnacle under the later Cholas or the Imperial Cholas of Tanjore. It declined under the onslaught of feudalism during Muslim rule and was revived under the British period, with lord Ripon’s Resolution in 1882. After Independence, the Gandhian ideal of Grama Swaraj greatly influenced the constitution makers. India being the land of the village emphasis’s for the creation of village panchayats. Restoration of panchayats to their pristine glory has been an article of faith during our freedom struggle. Hence with the drawn of independence and framing of the constitution of India, Article 40 was incorporated in the constitution. It runs as follows: “the State should take steps to organise village panchayats and endow them with such powers and authority as may be necessary to enable them to function as the units of self Governments.
The national level plan for improving the functioning of Panchayati Raj Institutions is chalked out in the roadmap for Panchayati Raj. It has been noted that due to poor resource base and economic activity in rural areas, the Panchayats would continue to depend on State/Central transfers, grants etc. The Union Cabinet of the Government of India approved 50% reservation for women in Panchayati Raj Institutions. The Indian states which have already implemented 50% reservation for women in Panchayati Raj Institutions are Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, and Himachal Pradesh. As of 2011, the states of Andhra Pradesh, Chhatisgarh, Jharkhand, Kerala, Maharastra, Orissa, Rajasthan and Tripura also reserve 50% of their posts for women.
A democratic form of government must be sustained by a system of vigorous local self-government institutions. local government institutions provide and opportunity to the people to participate freely and actively in the government which they formulate for their respective areas. These are necessary to encourage and foster initiative, independence, and enterprise on the part of the people. While inaugurating the first local self government minister’s conference in 1948, our late Prime Minister Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru said “local government is and must be the basis of any true system of democracy. Democracy at the top may not be a success unless built on its foundation from below”. Prof. laski says “local government offers the best opportunity to the people to bring local knowledge, interest and enthusiasm to bear on the solution of their problems.
Before the amendments were passed decentralisation became a policy concern during the colonial period and for a brief period the Constituent Assembly debates in the late 1940s suggested the possibility of developing an alternative structure of government. In the post-independence period, thinking about decentralization benefited from the deliberations of several committees, including the three chaired by Balwant Rai Mehta, Asoka Mehta, and l.M. Singhvi. In the late 1980s, both the Rajiv Gandhi and V.P. Singh governments introduced constitutional amendment bills that were unsuccessful. These efforts reached fruition in the 1990s, taking the form of constitutional amendments during the regime of P.V. Narasimha Rao. When they were enacted, they were therefore the product of a century or more of history. A vast intellectual resource on decentralization was created which informed the framing of the Amendments. It is worth recognizing this intellectual history because many of the solutions on offer have long been debated. There is a storehouse of information on local government, on experiments that failed and others that were successful.
The 73rd Amendment Act was related to village local self-government and inserted Part IX containing Articles 243 to 243-O in the Constitution. The 74th Amendment Act was related to municipal local government and it inserted Part IX A containing Articles 243P to 243ZG in the Constitution. As per the provisions, the Panchayati Raj Institutions would have a three-tier structure viz at the village level, the district level and the intermediate level standing between the village and district panchayats in States with population above 20 lakh. The members of the Panchayat at all levels were to be chosen by direct election from territorial constituencies in their respective areas. A State Election Commission was to be constituted for the conduct of free and fair elections. Seats are reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in proportion to their population. One third of all seats, including those reserved for SC/ST, are reserved for women. These seats can be allotted by rotation to different constituencies in a Panchayat. A State may provide by law for similar reservation of the offices of chairpersons. Every Panchayati Raj Institution was to have tenure of five years and if dissolved earlier elections must take place within six months. Any person above the age of 21 years and qualified to become a member of State legislature and can become a member of a Panchayat. Articles 243G-243H provides the State government with the requisite authority to confer powers to the Panchayati Raj Institution. The Eleventh Schedule of the Constitution gives the Panchayati Raj Institution control over 29 items such as land improvement, minor irrigation, animal husbandry, fishery, women and child development. A State Finance Commission was to be appointed by the state government every five years to review the financial position of the Panchayati Raj Institution.
The significance of local self government lies in the numerous benefits that it bestows upon the inhabitants of the areas it operates in. It functions as a school of democracy wherein citizens are imparted political and popular education regarding issues of local and national importance. It develops qualities of initiatives, tolerance and compromise- so essential for the working of democracy. It not only relieves congestion at the centre but it also checks the increasing power of democracy. It stands positively for the distribution and diffusion of power leading to administrative de- concentration and de- centralization. Being closer to the original base, it finds solution for local problems more efficiently. It provides facilities for minimum basic needs. It also serves as a reservoir of talents for local and national leadership. Government of India formulated E-Panchayat Mission Mode Project for e-enablement of all the Panchayats, to make their functioning more efficient and transparent. Applications except Geographic Information System (GIS) namely Area Profiler, Service Plus, Asset Directory, Action Soft, Social Audit and Trainings Management have also been launched on the occasion of National Panchayat Day. Under the National Panchayat Portal dynamic websites have been created for Panchayats of seeing an active content upload. local Governance Directory captures details of local governments and assigns unique code to all Panchayats to ensure interopertability amongst all applications of Panchayat Enterprise Suite. It also maps Panchayats with Assembly and Parliamentary Constituencies.
In various Centrally Sponsored Schemes and Additional Central Assistance the Panchayati Raj Institutions have been given centrality. Saakshar Bharat Mission, is a programme aimed at creating a literate Society through a variety of teaching learning programmes for non-literate and neo-literate of 15 years and above, for which the program involve community Panchayati Raj Institutions and women self-help groups in its endeavour. Each panchayat would have a lok Shiksha Kendra with a male and a female prerak, elected by the panchayat, to monitor the volunteers under the mission. Backward Regions Grant Fund (BRGF) provides untied grants to the Panchayats in the backward regions in order to reduce development deficits of the country, with the requirement that the District Plans for utilization of the grant be prepared by the involvement of the Gram Sabhas. Panchayat MahilaRsEvam Yuva Shakti Abhiyan aims to enable women and youth Panchayat leaders to come together to articulate their problems as women Panchayat leaders. E-Panchayat for computerizing the databases, accounts and other functions of the Gram Panchayats for accountability and transparency. Panchayat Empowerment & Accountability Incentive Scheme To recognize and incentivize the efforts of Panchayats with respect to transparency, accountability and efficiency and of States with respect to devolution of funds, functions and functionaries to Panchayats. Rural Business Hubs (RBH) aims to assist the Panchayats to empower rural labour productivity by providing forward backward linkages with technical assistance in Public-Private-Partnership. Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) where Panchayats at district, intermediate and village levels are the principal authorities for planning and implementation of MGNREGA. Rashtriya Gram Swaraj Yojana (RGSY) aims at capacity building and training of the elected representatives of Panchayati Raj Institutions as well as the Functionaries.
Symbolizing democracy by local government, GDH Cole ideologist point out “democracy is nothing unless it means, in the last resort, letting the people have their own way, not only in the mass, by means of an aggregate vote in a nation-wide scale, but also in their lesser groups and societies of which the greater societies are made up, and through which it is made articulate in such a way that the less clamorous voices can be heard”. The importance of local self government has all the more increased with the advent of Indian independence. They are expected not only to provide for the basic civic amenities for the safety and convenience of the citizens but also mobilize local support and public cooperation for the implementation of various programmes of welfare. Another benefit of the local government is that the transmission of power from bureaucrats to the democratically formed local government has positively checked the influence of bureaucracy. Thus it can be said that the local government ensures close relationship between the people and the higher level of governments through this device of communication.
