INTERACTIVE SESSION -II: CAPACITY BUILDING, CHAIRPERSON- DR. ASH NARAIN ROY, DIRECTOR, ISS

Dr.Roy emphasised the need for a greater debate on the issue and quoted the German Philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer who had famously said that all truths pass through three stages: they are first ridiculed, then violently opposed, and finally accepted as self-evident.

Dr. Roy observed that as predicated by the above truism, when the PRIs were given a new avatar, there was no dearth of skeptics. There were many who ridiculed; there were numerous misgivings and reservations. Many questions were asked, For example, how would these institutions be made strong? How would one find willing and suitable women to man these institutions? Rajiv Gandhi’s own effort to create new institutions of local government was guided by political need and political compulsions. Today, PRIs are making a transition from the second to the third stage and no one would dare ridicule them. There is a competitive radicalism in various political parties taking credit for empowering the panchayats. There is a consensus that empowerment is the only way to deepen democracy. There is still an element of violent opposition, but that too has come down.

Dr. Roy advised the panelists to review the journey undertaken in the last two decades and assess to what extent it had been fruitful. They might also discuss how a good local government should be judged. Should it be judged in terms of its capability for service delivery, or in terms of political empowerment, or a mix of both? When the panchayati raj system was introduced, the assumption was that it would promote social justice and equity. Dr Roy left it to the panel to decide where we stand in this respect at the present juncture and to what extent the politics of inclusion and empowerment has been pursued in the PRIs.

Empowerment & Capacity Building of Local Bodies

Ms. Nirmala Buch, former Secretary, Government of India, Ministry of Rural Development:

The first panelist, Ms Nirmala Buch, recounted her experiences in respect of the empowerment and capacity building of local bodies. She lamented the fact that when one talked about panchayats and local bodies, it was not about their statutory functions or processes, but about power politics at various levels. Since the 1930s, the subject of panchayats was with the provincial governments. Though the situations remains unchanged after the passage of the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments, it was ironical that all decisions related to panchayats were taken in Delhi. Decentralization remained a commitment on paper;; in reality, panchayats did not have any authority. In centrally sponsored schemes like MGNREGA, particulars like resource allocation, employment, reports to be made, etc. were decided in Delhi. Similarly, in various other centrally sponsored schemes, no power was delegated to the lower levels.

She observed that ‘local bodies’, which comprised panchayats and urban local bodies (ULBs),. were not sovereign, but empowered and autonomous bodies within the overall context of the sovereign state. They were not quintessential development agencies, but bodies which had the power to work at the local level. Articles 243G and 243W emphasize the role of local bodies in the preparation and implementation of schemes for economic development and social justice, but the fact was that municipalities did not have much development work or money; what they had was the power to work at the local level.

Local body functions comprise civic, regulatory, and development functions. There is much more talk of development because there is money involved. The basic functions of local bodies are water supply, sanitation, regulation of cattle, garbage disposal, etc. which have to be executed irrespective of finances being allocated, or not. Ms. Buch recalled that in earlier days there were no dirty municipal areas, but despite the availability of more machines and better technology in modern times, regular cleaning is not being done in municipal areas. In the absence of an adequate comprehension of duties and responsibilities, routine tasks are not being performed.

She was of the view that all the problems of panchayats would not be solved by conducting social audits in gram sabhas. Panchayats and municipalities are adamant about not imposing taxes on their residents, but in that case how would resources be generated? People should be called upon to contribute their mite to the budget of local bodies, however minimal their percentage share might be. If they were to be told to make a compulsory contribution whether in cash or in kind, they would willingly do so.

Ms. Buch regretted that there has not been any popular movement for empowerment of local bodies to enable them to speak for themselves and articulate their needs and demands. There should be an emphasis on resource mobilization,and community participation with fairness and justice.

She identified the following major challenges to the proper functioning of PRIs.

1. The states have become captives of local elites and power brokers. The promise made by Rajiv Gandhi on taking over the reins of government to free the people from power brokers has not been redeemed. Only the identity of power brokers and their tactics have changed. There is a deeply entrenched system of patronage,which runs from top to bottom and covers not only MLAs and MPs, but also the local representatives.

    

2. Theprogramme funds of the Central government are plagued by deficits of efficiency, responsibility as well as accountability.

    

3. The focus in empowerment of panchayats should be on civic functions. Planning has to be stronger and participatory. Special attention should begiven to capacity building of women.

    

4. The local community must become a stakeholder in community development. Unless the people are made to contribute to the budget of the local body, they would not question in what manner their money has been expended.

    

Elaborating the meaning of ‘empowerment of panchayats’, Ms. Buch stated that panchayats at various levels should be enabled to fulfill their duties and roles. For this purpose, panchayats should enhance their knowledge and awareness. They must be aware of the Constitutional provisions, their legal rights and duties, and entitlements in terms of resources. For instance, panchayats have to perform certain regulatory functions, like issuing birth and death certificates. It has been observed that many panchayats fail to perform these basic functions. Many of them do not use the available resources and refrain from imposing the prescribed taxes and levies.

Community participation and the use of the available resources will go a long way in empowerment of the panchayats, Ms. Buch. also felt that the three “F”s,. viz. Funds, Functions and Functionaries by themselves were not sufficient. The 3 “F”s must be accompanied by autonomy.

Empowerment and Capacity Building of Panchayats

Ms. Rashmi Shukla Sharma, Joint Secretary, Union Ministry of Panchayati Raj:

Building up the capacity of an institution is very important, because an institution must have the ability to deliver, should be legitimate and owned by the people. As enough capacities had not been created at the grassroots, a panchayat’s ability to function was very limited. Only when grassroots capacity is created, grassroots aspiration can become a reality. A panchayat should not only have the capacity to plan, but also to execute the plans and programmes.

Challenges in Empowerment/ Capacity Building:

• The panchayats today are overloaded with responsibilities. This is also increasing with the load of central programmes. For example, under MGNREGA, the panchayats in many states are handling a lot of funds. Regular increase in the responsibilities when there is lack of capacity is not only a big risk, but also a recipe for failure.

   

• A question that often comes up in debates on the capacity of panchayats is whether too many bureaucrats in panchayats would lead to their domination over the elected representatives. Opinions may differ, but it ought to be recognized that government officials are required to provide panchayats with adequate technical and administrative support. If one looks at the status of panchayats today, it would transpire that only a small number of panchayats have sufficient technical and administrative support.

   

• How can the bureaucracy be restructured so that it is able to support the panchayats? The bureaucratic structure presently being vertical with departments and field functionaries at various levels, a major shift to a horizontal structure was required . The different departments with which panchayats work also have the orientation of vertical structure. Powers and plans flow from the top of the structure.

   

• Another important issue which needed to be addressed was corruption.

   

• Capacity building for weaker sections was an even more challenging task. There are currently 29 lakh elected representatives in the country. Of them, 37% are women, 19% are SCs and 12% are STs. Reservation of seats for the weaker sections was an important step towards empowerment. These sections were confronted with greater challenges and, hence, their capacity building needs were much higher.

   

• The panchayat representatives change every five years. This generates new capacity building needs. However, this should be taken as a great opportunity to deepen popular democracy.

   

• There are significant differences in educational levels of panchayat representatives.

   

• Panchayat secretaries are not hired to assume a big leadership role. They are required to perform routine functions. for which capacity needs to be built.

   

• Panchayats are expected to work on a wide range of issues, e.g. employment generation, sanitation, health, etc. This offers a grand opportunity for changing the prevailing ethos. Yet, handling a wide range of issues without having adequate capacities could be extremely challenging.

   

Capacity building measures taken by the Ministry of PR:

Ms. Sharma cited a few initiatives of the Ministry for capacity building of the panchayats. Backward Regions Grant Fund Programme was benefiting 250 backward regions. Under this programme, panchayats get untied amounts with which they can make development plans of their own. This programme was not schematic and facilitated capacity building. Rashtriya Gram Swaraj Yojana (RGSY) Programme was another such scheme that helps in building the capacity of the panchayats.

Ms. Sharma acknowledged that considering the magnitude of the needs, these measures were far from sufficient and that there was a scarcity of good institutional structures and human resources for capacity building of panchayats. Given the complexity of the task, it would be very difficult to move forward with the existing structures.

Ms. Sharma assured the audience that the Ministry of Panchayati Raj would address all the above mentioned issues in the 12th five year plan.

Empowermentof SCs, STs and Women in Local Self Governance

Dr. Bidyut Mohanty, Head, Women’s Studies Department, ISS:

Indian women are subjected to various types of subjugations, including caste, class and patriarchy. The political, social and economic institutions did not represent their view points at all. In order to rectify those deficits, reservation of seats for women at least in the third tier political institutions was mooted early in the 1970s - the Decade of Women proclaimed by the United Nations. If one were to look into the pages of history to trace the origin of the issue of women’s reservation , one would realize how much controversy the issue had generated. The Towards Equality Report (1974) observed that women had not fared well on any of the social or economic indicators even though the country had won independence long ago. Yet the members of the Committee that drew up the Report were not unanimous in recommending the reservation of seats for women even at the local government level. Reservation would compromise the institutional efficiency , it was argued. However, feminists like Lotika Sarkar and Veena Mazumdar strongly put forward the case for political reservation. To quote them, “When one applies the principles of democracy to a society characterized by tremendous inequalities, such special protections are only spearheads to pierce through the barriers of inequality…..Equality of opportunities cannot be achieved in the face of the tremendous disabilities and obstacles, which the social system imposes on all those sections whom traditional India treated as second class or even third class citizens.”(Towards Equality-1974 p.357)

The reservation question, far from being a minority view, became a core issue in the document of National Perspective Planning (1988- 2000), which was prepared a little later.The later Report recommended 30 percent reservation for women in the local governments, both at the executive and the membership levels. This percentage was increased to not less than one third in a historic constitutional amendment, namely the 73rdConstitution Amendment Act, 1993.

In recent years, the limit has further been raised to fifty percent in many of the states. This measure has enabled more than one million women to get elected in every term and another two to three million women to be enlightened about the political system. In the process, a stage has been created for ‘social mobilization’ of village women. This is perhaps one of the biggest contributions of the twentieth century towards the women’s movement. But this measure will be futile if women leaders remain inactive and fail to push for initiatives for the welfare of the villagers in general and women in particular.

Dr. Mohanty recapitulated her work on assessing the performance of Elected Women Representatives (EWRs) in terms of effective leadership in implementing the welfare schemes, particularly those pertaining to public goods geared towards women. Her conclusions were based on a five year project titled ‘Evaluating and Monitoring the performance of EWRs in three districts of Orissa’ from 1997 to 2001and a UNDP sponsored study of Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana,, called ‘Capacity Building of EWRs and Functionaries of Panchayati Raj Institutions’. Dr. Mohanty concluded that if EWRs became part of the women’s collective and got the requisite exposure, the leadership deficit would get eliminated. EWRs along with the women’s collective would not only voice their demands in the Gram Sabha (Jafri, 2006), Pant (2007), but would also be more responsive to the delivery of basic services. The only caveat was the question of sustainability in the event of withdrawal of the sponsoring agency.