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Transcript

Hello friends. In our last class we were discussing about the program of Agricultural Technology Management Agency, which is providing extension services for the farmers, which was the a component of the mega project of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, that is the National Agricultural Technology Project. Also we discussed about the Agricultural Technology Information Center, and NAIP in brief, so that we had an idea of how these programs are taking up the research and development activities. In today’s class we will be taking up the concept of democratic decentralization, which is popularly known as the Panchayatiraj system.

The panchayats were the original dispute settlement systems that were available in the rural areas before establishments of the courts and other legalized institutions. The village heads used to provide solutions to the problems that the community used to face. But the modified system of this Panchayatiraj, looking in to the development of various developmental initiatives, it was thought that if the involvement of the people in the decision making is involved, then there might be increase in the participation as well as the developmental initiatives can be taken up in a more competent manner. This was one school of thought and in addition to that handing over of the responsibility of the planning, implementation as well as evaluation process to the public, or involvement of more and more people into this process was another logic behind launching programs like Democratic Decentralization or the Panchayatiraj system. Wherein the democratic process of electing the people’s representatives on the small scale basis and handing over them to the responsibility of planning and implementation and evaluation of programs which are necessary for them.

So in this context the people’s participation is a must for developmental process, which we have been observing over a period of time, through with the help of various developmental programs that have been implemented so far. If ultimate stakeholders are not involved in the implementation and evaluation phase, we cannot think of the holistic development. So this is what I tried to explain, how can we make use of the maximum number of people in the process of developmental initiatives was planned and implemented through this program of Panachayatiraj system. For which the Government of India appointed a committee under the leadership of Shri Balwantraiji Mehta, which submitted its report in the year 1957, when the process of democratic decentralization was launched in the country. The recommendation of the committee included establishment of a panchayat. The representative of a panchayat and they are going to be democratically elected by the vote of the people.

Then entrusting planning and developmental activities to this panchayat. So that was another recommendation given by Balwantraiji Mehta. And transfer of adequate resources to discharge duties. So with these three basic inputs, the concept of democratic decentralization was launched and various panchayats were established in the country. For which they established a 3 tier structure. The first tier included the gram panchayat or the village panchayat, or including the cluster of villages. It may be in one village or a group of villages were brought under this particular network. And at the second level, the panchayat samiti or taluk panchayat. The taluk panchayat at the block level. So it is the middle level tier of the Pnachayatiraj system. The highest policy making body is the zilla panchayat or the district panchayat. So these were the three tiers of the Panchayatiraj system under democratic decentralization.

The process started in the year 1957, when people started participating in this democratic process, and they started electing their representatives, and the elected representatives representing their small wards or may be representing 100-200 families in a village, and they started working for that particular community in planning, implementation and evaluation of the program. But there were good number of problems that were encountered and these things were summarized. And the entire process of, this process of democratic decentralization has been divided into three phases. The first phase has been identified as the phase of ascendancy, which started from 1957 and it runs up to 1964. 1957-64 it was the phase of ascendancy, it means the people’s participation in this democratic process went on increasing. With the enthusiasm of the people and they started taking initiatives in addressing problems of their own. The years between 1965-69 are identified as the years of stagnation, wherein there are good number of reasons why it came to stagnation level. Why people stopped almost participating in these democratic processes? We’ll be coming to that later. And since 1969-77, the phase of declining that we can say that. So the process of democratic decentralization so it had a setback, because of certain reasons, what are those, we’ll be coming to them.

So when we look into the reasons behind that. The rural development programs were kept out of the purview of the Panchayatiraj institutions. So this was the foremost reason behind stagnation as well as declining phase of the Panchayatiraj system. The basic idea of institution of this panchayats was to take up the rural development activities. But when they started functioning it was kept out of the purview of these institutions, and that is how there was a huge vacuum that was created between the representatives of the people and the bureaucracy. The second point was reduced fund allocation. You are asking them to take up the developmental initiatives, but funds are not being provided. So again that created another sort of vacuum in taking the initiatives on the developmental activities. The third point emerged was lack of adjustment of bureaucracy with the Panchayatiraj institution. The bureaucratic set up did not wanted to lose their power, because they thought that our powers are being snatched away by the people’s representatives. And we are going to be the jobless over a period of time. Just because of this conceptual, lack of conceptual clarity. So there was the phase emerged like stagnation and decline of Panchayatiraj institutions.

The next point was the lack of political will. It is not only in the implementation of the Panchayatiraj system, in most of the developmental initiatives we come across the concepts like the ‘ lack of political will’. It means the political system don’t want that such developmental initiatives to be taken up at the village level. And there are forces which are playing for that particular thing. Then that is how the entire process of the development is destabilized with such activities. Then the reason for stagnation and decline was due to postponement of the panchayat elections. And in some States suspension of the panchayatiraj institutions also had taken place. The established State Governments again started thinking that, if everything is being taken away by the Panchyatiraj institutions. Then what is left for us and what we are going to do. So that was again because of lack of conceptual clarity regarding the institution of Panchayatiraj organization. So then because of that they started postponing the elections. Or in some cases they suspended the institutions itself.

Then the lack of conceptual clarity about the Panchayatiraj institutions and its objectives acted in another way in declining and the stagnation phase of the Panchayatiraj system. So to overcome these issues in the year 1992, the 72nd constitutional amendment was brought to see that there are no such problems, that is going to be faced for the Panchayatiraj institutions in future. And because of this constitutional amendment, they gained a momentum again in the country and grass root level, the development became a reality.

To conclude we can say that Community Development Program and Panchayatiraj institutions were two such programs which were experimented on people’s participation at the grass root level for ensuring development. The process of development is continuous journey. We need to learn from our previous mistakes and make necessary modifications in the approach, and involve the community for holistic development. So this is what is the take home message from these programs, that until and unless we involve the ultimate stakeholder, who are the real beneficiaries as well the actors in the process of development. The moment they are neglected. Ultimately it is going to neglect the process of development itself. And because of that the Panchyatiraj insitutions were brought into the picture. But over a period of time they are functioning very well. And because of that we can see a good number of changes in the rural areas.

With this we are coming to end of today’s discussion.

Thank You.