ROLE OF GRAMA PANCHAYATHS IN DECENTRALISATION AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN KARNATAKA
Dhanunjaya .M.B
Assistant Professor, Dept. of Political Science,
YER Government First Grade College, Pavagada, Tumkur District
Abstract
The Karnataka Act 20 of 1985 contemplates among other things, the process of decentralization both in planning and effective implementation necessary for attaining national goals and objectives like increase in agricultural production, creation of more employment avenues, removal of poverty and illiteracy, bringing about all round improvement in the rural areas, and quality of life in the rural areas. What essentially distinguishes new set up from pre-existing institutions basically stems from the fact that the institutions under the new set up have been conceived to function/perform its duties by actively involving the people both in planning and execution of the schemes.
Introduction
India being a country with a large number of villages and inhabited by a vast rural population, a strong need was felt to cater to the needs of the people residing in the remote interior villages. The Community Development Programme which began in 1952 was one such programme which aimed at improving the lot of the villages by ameliorating their socio-economic conditions and ushering an all round progress in the standard of living of the villagers.
Various committees namely the Balwanrai Mehra Committee, Ashok Mehta Committee, G.V.K.Rao Committee, L.M Singhvi Committee were set up and though each of these committees came up with their own recommendations to facilitate the creation of local self government and achieve democratic decentralization but unfortunately for various reasons they met with limited success.
However, the real turn around concerning the establishment of the local self government which in turn entailed the process of democratic decentralization got a fresh impetus when the then Prime Minister of India Sri Rajiv Gandhi evinced a keen interest in strengthening the institutions of grass roots democracy cutting across the length and breadth of the country. This essentially resulted in the passage of the Constitution 73rd and 74th Amendment Acts which gave a Constitutional status to the local bodies.
The importance of these amendments stems from the fact that atleast belatedly the Union Government and all the State Governments recognized the importance of holding a free and fair election periodical. Further State Finance Commission has also been created to provide finances for the regular conduct of elections to these bodies.
The panchayath raj movement in Karnataka has a history of its own. This can be traced to the Karnataka Act No.10 of 1959. Further the reorganization of the states done in 1959 added four other different sub-regions to the then Mysore State. The structure of panchayath raj as embodied in the Karnataka village panchayats and local boards Act, 1959 was almost similar as identified by the Balwantra Mehta Committee except for two important aspects.
The committee on panchayat raj under the chairmanship of Sri Kondajji Basappa was constituted by the then Mysore State Government on 10th October, 1962, to make the panchayath raj institutions more efficient. Following the report of Kondajji Basappa Committee in 1963, a Bill was introduced in 1964 to establish a three-tier structure of rural self-government. But nothing emerged out of it as the state government did not show any willingness to undertake any such experiment.
It was only in 1983 that the Janata Government headed by Ramakrishna Hegde showed the political will to make a new experiment with the democratic decentralization in Karnataka. the Bill known as Karnataka Zilla Parishads, Taluk Panchayat Samithis, Mandal Panchayats and Nyaya Panchayats Act, 1983 was introduced in the state legislature in August, 1983. Finally, the Bill received the President’s assent and became operational with effect from 14th August, 1985.
The history of the efforts to create democratic institutions at the district and sub-district levels had been a history of hesitant and faltering steps and of an unresolved contradiction between the powerful forces of centralization and the yearning for decentralization. During a period of four decades, though several attempts were made to enact and implement democratic decentralization at the district and power levels, the efforts did not bear any fruit and the forces of centralization consistently won over those of decentralization. There are many paths to development. Different paths to development, nevertheless, converge in an assumption that improvement in living conditions are not brought about from above by some outside agency but by the people themselves taking an active part in their development. It is, therefore, generally agreed that if progress it to be achieved, it cannot be imposed from outside and must be based on small locally based and sustainable initiatives. The focus of current development efforts are, thus, heavily tilted in favour of building institutional capacity through participation and local self-reliance leading to empowerment.
Panchayath raj institution technique help us to understand the rural poor and appreciate their perceptions, their needs and aspirations and also involve them in a participatory manner making in panning and decision-making for the betterment of their quality of life . It is rightly said, “The people, for whom all the schemes are chalked out, had not been consulted either for diagnosis of the problem or for the prognosis of the schemes. The officials ought to learn a lot from the experience of the rural poor and this call for effective interact with them.
Panchayath raj institution approach has some merits. It promotes a community forum to study local problems and find out solutions for them. It also serves as catalyst for local and external elements to introduce positive change. In short, people’s participation in the planning process enables the Government to have a better understanding of local problems.
For example, in the implementation of many anti-poverty programmes, assets have been provided without knowing the capacities/conditions of the beneficiaries. In some cases, the beneficiaries belonging to the low caste obtained superior breed of buffaloes. But, they failed to derive any benefit from them, as they could not provide them the required dry and green fodder. Some of them are, therefore forced to sell them to higher caste big farmers. Likewise, though loans and subsidies are provided to dig open and bore wells, electricity is not provided for the pumps. Such costly mistakes could have been avoided, if only people’s participation in rural development has been ensured. In the absence of this, even the data collected provided to be unreliable. People’s participation is required not only to the construction of assets but also in their proper maintenance.
As result of strong public opinion, substantial changes were made in the bill by the select committee. A very mush improved panchayath Act was introduced. The new act conformed to the mandatory provisions of the Constitution. Gram Sabhas were to be formed ward wise in the state of Karnataka in view of the large size of the panchayaths. They were to have a number of supervisory and monitoring powers relating to development activity, and were also to assist in the identification of beneficiaries as well as in mobilization of community efforts.
The village panchayat was bound to place a report before each gram sabha on the development schemes and the development activities to each year and those proposed for the next year, and the reasons for non-implementation of the recommendations of the gram sabhas would have to be explained by the president of the panchayath.
A more significant recent development has been the issue of an ordinance in February 1999 reducing the number of gram panchayts in the state to roughly half the present number. Under the ordinance, the population limits of a gram panchayath will be raised to 10,000 to 16000 as against the present 5000 to 7000. For the hilly areas, the minimum population will be 6,000 instead of 2,500. The reason advanced by the government for this change is that under the earlier pattern the gram panchayats were too small to be viable. They had limited financial resources and manpower and were not capable of becoming effective instruments of development. In this context the present study is very much needful,
The present study is based on the following objectives;
Hypotheses
The following hypotheses have been framed in the study;
Methodology adopted for the Study
The study on is based on both primary and secondary source of data. The primary data will be collected from 400 respondents through field survey conducted in Mysore district. The respondents will be selected on simple random sampling basis. Simple techniques will be used to analyse the data.
The secondary data will be collected from the following sources;
References