Panchayati Raj System: What remains to be done afer 25 years?

Background:

Panchayati Raj in the country received the president’s assent and was proclaimed as incorporated in Parts IX and IXA of the Constitution 25 years ago. 
There is much that remains to be done.

Positive developments:

• All states have ensured the full and conscientious implementation of the mandatory provisions of the Constitution on local self-government institutions in both rural and urban India.
• Most state legislation has rendered statutory several of the recommendatory provisions of the Constitution such as the 29 and 18 subjects for devolution illustratively set out respectively in the 12th and 13th Schedules.
• Successive (central) Finance Commissions have so substantially increased funding to the local bodies, and progressively converted this into untied grants, that panchayats are flush with funds. 
  If recommendation made by chairman NK Singh of the current 15th Finance Commission to increase current funding by about 2 per cent of the divisible pool, is implemented, we would be achieving standards of international best practice in respect of financing local bodies.

The roots of grassroots democracy in the country have been embedded deep:

• Today, we have in our 2.5 lakh panchayats and municipalities some 32 lakh elected people’s representatives.
• Uniquely, SC/ST representation is proportional to SC/ST population ratios in villages, talukas/blocks and districts respectively. Approximately one lakh sarpanches are SC/ST.
• Most staggering of all is the representation of women: Comprising about 14 lakh members, with some 86,000 chairing their local bodies, there are more elected women representatives (mostly from economically weaker and socially disadvantaged sections) in India alone than in the rest of the world put together!

What remains?

• Effective devolution:
  The 2013 expert committee laid out in detail how to achieve this through the device of “activity mapping”. 
  Activity Mapping involves clear cut delineation of functions for each level of the local governance. It does not imply that the subjects are devolved wholesale. 
  The Subjects or Sectors need to be unbundled and assigned to the different levels of Government on the basis of clear principles of public finance and public accountability, and, the governance principles of Subsidiarity, democratic decentralization and Citizen centricity.
  The result of good Activity Mapping would be to clearly identify where competence, authority and accountability lie. Giving the Gram Panchayats the responsibilities of asset creation, operation, and maintenance, while involving it in the planning process through the Gram Sabha; giving the middle tiers responsibilities for human capital development; and giving higher levels of government the responsibility of policy, standards and monitoring of outcomes.
• Activity maps should be incorporated in the guidelines of all centrally sponsored schemes. The massive amounts of money earmarked for poverty alleviation should be sent directly to gram panchayat accounts, reinforced by detailed activity maps to ensure genuine “local self-government”.
• Financial incentivisation of the states to encourage effective devolution to the panchayats of the three Fs — functions, finances, functionaries.
• District planning based on grassroots inputsreceived from the village, intermediate and district levels through people’s participation in the gram and ward sabhas.
• Following the example of Karnataka, to establish a separate cadre of panchayat officials who would be subordinate to the elected authority especially in states with weak panchayat systems.

Conclusion:

These bove outlined steps might constitute a useful beginning for second-generation reforms to secure grassroots development through democratic grassroots governance.
It has taken a generation to get to where we have and we need perhaps another generation to achieve with satisfaction the evolution in grassroots governance and development.