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| Dynamics of Panchayati Raj Institutions in Covid-19 | | |
Dr. Rajkumar Singh
The entire governing establishment in the Centre and the states needs to wake up to the huge potential of local self-government to fight COVID-19. There is an army of 32 lakh elected representatives in the panchayats and about two lakh more in the municipalities raring to rise to the occasion. Well over a third of them, some 10-12 lakh, are drawn from the Scheduled Castes and Tribes and, therefore, in touch with the most needy, the most destitute in every village and town. There are some 14 lakh women who have established themselves by election as village leaders. They constitute the largest body of democratically elected women in the world. The crisis surrounding COVID-19 pandemic has clearly established the critical importance of panchayats in mobilising resources, managing intricate tasks and shouldering responsibilities that no other institution can replace. Post-pandemic, both Centre and States should not forget to ensure their legitimate constitutional status. A substantive transformation of panchayats requires political statesmanship from the States and the Centre.
Strengthing of local bodies
This article provides that state legislatures “may, by law, endow the Panchayats with such powers and authority as may be necessary to enable them to function as institutions of self-government”. This means state governments cannot and must not treat panchayats as extensions of the state government but as “institutions of (local) self-government”.
If the logic of “cooperative federalism” is that states must function not as implementation arms of the central government but as autonomous units within the federation, then panchayats too must be conceived not as an extension of state governments but as “units of self-government”. It is thus that panchayats need to be brought into the three-tier devolution system envisaged in the Constitution: Centre-State-Panchayats (and municipalities). What is still to be brought upfront and in focus is further devolution to the panchayats and municipalities in keeping with the constitutional obligations under the 73rd and 74th amendments, enshrined for the past quarter century in Parts IX and IX A of the Constitution. The starting point could best be Entry 23 of the Eleventh Schedule that reads, “Health, sanitation, including hospitals, primary health centres and dispensaries” among the list of 29 subjects illustratively set out for devolution to the panchayats, subject to conformity legislation being enacted by state legislatures. All state legislation has included this subject and, therefore, empowering the panchayats in this regard with functions, finances and functionaries is now a statutory obligation under state law and governed by the provisions of Article 243G.
Planning and execution at local level
The most important requirement is planning to receive the migrant labour influx, including testing, quarantine, isolation, social distancing to the extent possible, and ensuring that all without exception are fed and housed and receive the monetary grants that are essential to keep body and soul together. Last mile delivery can only be comprehensively ensured by empowered panchayats (and municipalities) reporting to their respective gram sabhas and ward sabhas mandated under Articles 243 A and 243 S. Relying exclusively on the local bureaucracy for last mile delivery has been the bane of administration. Planning for withstanding the ingress of COVID-19 requires the full deployment of the mechanisms for district planning envisaged in Article 243 ZD involving all three tiers of the panchayats and the municipalities brought together in the district planning committee. At the village and neighbourhood levels, it is essential to involve the gram sabhas, gram sansads and ward sabhas. Only thus can the war on COVID-19 be made a people’s movement; only thus in a country as huge and populous as ours can succeed. India and the world would have sat up and noted that the humanitarian face of the battle is the reflection of the face of the people in the panchayats and municipalities it is increasingly clear that the worst is not over yet. If not another round of lockdown, India may witness at least similar measures that will restrict citizens’ movements in the coming months when the second wave of coronavirus infections hits the globe again. A democracy like India is uniquely positioned to deploy its local level self-governing councils to address the challenges. Democracies can and must serve their citizens better in times of such crisis. State capacity is not merely about efficiency in the delivery of goods and services. It also entails the principles of equity and accountability.
An efficient root of Indian democracy
The three-tiered local government system remains one of the most representative of all, largely due to the most radical affirmative action programme of reserving seats for marginalised communities. India is home to the largest body of elected officials of the local self-government anywhere in the world: more than 2.6 lakh gram panchayats with approximately three million elected representatives at all levels, of which more than one million are women. Similarly, there are 5,000 urban local bodies, and this does not include elected Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs). Opinion surveys have consistently shown that Indian citizens have a very high level of trust in their local governments (panchayats and municipalities), and they are also more likely to approach a panchayat leader than any other official of the Indian state. On the other hand, the level of trust in police and government official is the lowest among all the institutions of the state. The survey data also suggests that citizens find higher government officials inattentive to their problems and also rude on many occasions in comparison to elected representatives.
A principal reason for Kerala’s amazing performance in “flattening the curve” is their robust system of effective devolution that has enabled the Kudumbashree programme to function in association with the panchayats. The easing of lockdown appears to be resulting in a flood of migrant workers thankfully returning to their native villages, it becomes even more important to fully involve village panchayats (and municipalities as “institutions of self-government” – 243W) in the anti-COVID-19 campaign. Indeed, unless cooperative federalism is extended to the third tier of government, little will be achieved as it is at the grassroots that the campaign has to be planned and implemented. It may also be specially noted that until there is the full resumption of normal economic activity, there is going to be need to provide free or heavily subsidised food to millions of villagers, including repatriated migrant labour.
Entry 28 of the Eleventh Schedule mentions the “public distribution system” as among the subjects for devolution. There are many other entries in the Schedule that are relevant to this exercise but once states accept in letter and spirit the partnership of the panchayats, the coverage will ineluctably be extended to all relevant entries in the Eleventh and Twelfth Schedules and the conformity legislation of the states.
However, beyond these numbers and occasional heroics as in the case of COVID-19, Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI) continue to play a subservient role notwithstanding the 73rd Constitution Amendment entrusting them as critical “self-governing institutions” or little republics. The progress with regard to decentralisation and panchayats having modest degree of autonomy is slow due to numerous systemic bottlenecks and institutional challenges. This is largely because while most Indian states appear to have met the necessary conditions, such as enactment of the State Panchayat Act, setting up of the State Finance Commission, the State Election Commission and the District Planning Committee, still several of them have not devolved funds and functions to these local bodies. |
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