Day 9 – Q 4.Strong political will of the state governments and cooperation from the bureaucracy are vital for vibrant local self- government institutions. Elaborate.

4. Strong political will of the state governments and cooperation from the bureaucracy are vital for vibrant local self- government institutions. Elaborate. 

राज्य सरकारों की मजबूत राजनीतिक इच्छाशक्ति और नौकरशाही से सहयोग जीवंत स्थानीय स्व–सरकारी संस्थानों के लिए महत्वपूर्ण हैं। विस्तृत करें।

Introduction:

Local Self- Government is a form of government that has no share in sovereignty and is thus entirely subordinate to central authority or, in a federal system, to state or regional authority. This level of government is recognized by the people as they are close to the citizen and involve them in the decision making process. The task of developing local self-help government institutions and modernization is not possible without the proper cooperation and effective bureaucracy.

Body:

Strong political will of the state governments are vital for vibrant local self-government institutions.

a) Strong political commitment from higher level authorities within the Government.

Activity mapping which was supposed to be done by states as per resolution of the State Panchayat Ministers’ round table has been done by quite a few states, but implementation has often remained incomplete. Transfer of functionaries has also remained mostly symbolic.

b) Autonomy of the local bodies in decision making and implementation of local schemes:

Since Panchayats implement state and union government schemes they are required to adhere to the guidelines without any authority to deviate even a little as per necessities emanating from local conditions. In the absence of Panchayats’ own financial resources they can hardly undertake programs on their own in line with local requirements. It is here that decentralization of political decision making needs to be complimented by measures to ensure fiscal autonomy for PRIs so that such institutions can muster necessary financial resources on their own to be truly self-reliant in local decision-making and its implementation.

c) Availability of the internally generated resources at the local level:

In the federal system of governance that is existent in India, almost all the sources of tax    or non-tax revenue come under the jurisdictions of the State and Union Governments. This leaves little scope for local governments to generate resources on their own. Their own revenue generation capacity remains limited vis-a-vis their requirements and expenditure obligations. In view of this the constitution mandated for setting up of the State Finance Commissions that would help determine the devolution of state’s revenue to the local governments.

Cooperation from the bureaucracy is vital for vibrant local self- government institutions.

• The development of bureaucracy should not be conservative but it should have scientific outlook, progressive, innovative, reformist and revolutionary in nature. The concrete tasks of development which the state had to undertake include modernization of agriculture, industrialization and economic diversification and building of infrastructure including irrigation, electrification, communication, transport, education, health and promotion of science and technology.
• The Twenty Point Program  contained a number of points for the poorest sections of the society like the liquidation of the rural indebtedness, provision of house sites for landless, and enforcement of minimum wages. The formulation and implementation of these programs required bureaucracy to play a new role, the role of an agent of development or agent of change as compared with the traditional role of the past as agent of status quo. Furthermore, since most of these were people oriented programs bureaucracy had necessarily to work with people.
• Motivating and mobilizing the people, communicating programs to them, eliciting their cooperation, building up grass-root popular institutions-these were the new methods and techniques of administration which bureaucracy had to adopt.
• The bureaucracy had to go to people as development workers rather than just passing orders on cases of people approaching them with their grievances.

Conclusion:

The 73rd Constitutional amendment was hailed as an important landmark for its radical approach towards decentralization, devolution of power and in ensuring the participation of the marginalized sections. The Amendment sought to bring a new political system in rural areas by giving priority to decentralization, people’s participation and democracy at the local level.