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| Change they promised, did not take shape on ground | | Govt in sixth month, no DDB meets yet; Rather says schedule being fixed | |
ZAFAR CHOUDHARY
Jammu, June 16: Nearly six months after they were elected to the highest decision making house through public mandate, the Members of the Legislative Assembly are in a dilemma on fixing up the issues in their constituencies which they envisioned and promised to the people.
Two quarters of financial year –last quarter of previous year and first quarter of current year –have almost passed and there has been no meeting of the District Development Boards where new developmental schemes could be listed, approved and funds earmarked for them. District Development Board is the main institution where funds for actual change on the ground are decided and dispensed.
It is been almost six months after the Omar Abdullah regime of National Conference-Congress took over but the government’s attention is yet to catch up with the participation of elected representatives in the decision making process, at least concerning to their constituencies. “We have not been able to take up even a single developmental project in our constituencies as the District Development Boards never met”, said a ruling National Conference MLA who did not wish to be named. He added, we have already lost six months which could have been utilized in bringing change on the ground as we promised to our electorate”.
Finance Minister Abdul Rahim Rather, however, told Early Times that meetings will take place soon. When contacted to comment on keeping this process in limbo, Rather said, “schedule is being fixed up and meetings of District Development Boards shall roll out soon”.
Sources said that the government, in April this year, released 25 per cent of the plan money and another installment of 25 per cent was released this month. With no meeting of District Development Board taking place and thus no inputs from the elected representatives the funds released so far are all going to the already running projects. No new developmental scheme could be envisaged at the district and constituency level in past six months.
With this unexplained freeze on the most essential part of governance –the meeting of District Development Boards –the government has nearly subverted the single-line administration system which was once a USP of the National Conference. Under the single-line administration, the epicenter of the decision making would rest at the districts with legislators as key decision makers, a Cabinet Minister as its chairman and the concerned Deputy Commissioner as Chairman of the Board.
Meanwhile, looking back at the history of District Development Boards, it appears that the National Conference has allowed Sheikh Abdullah’s widely acclaimed concept of single line administration to vanish. Between 1996 and 2002 the then ruling National Conference had not bothered to implement in letter and spirit the plan conceived by Sheikh Abdullah related to taking the cabinet to the "doorstep" of people through District Development Board meetings. These Board meetings seem to have lost the basic purpose of promoting interaction between the ministers and the people for mitigating woes of the masses. When Sheikh Abdullah conceived the idea of District Development Boards the meetings of these Boards would be held in each district twice a year on rotation basis. During that time all the members of the council of ministers were supposed to be present in the Board meetings where people would seek redress of their grievances and problems. The basic idea of these Board meetings was to formulate the annual plan for the district in consultation with the representatives of people.
In fact right from 1987 the successive Governments have simply show cased the Board meetings. Each District Board is headed by a cabinet Minister who presides over the meetings in the company of a couple of other ministers and a handful of senior bureaucrats. The meetings have already been reduced to a ritual where the ministers and bureaucrats are seen as if they are on a picnic. The annual plan for each district is actually prepared in the civil secretariat and some of the main features are read out during the meeting and during the public rally which follows the district development board meeting. Even if some legislators and prominent citizens seek inclusion of some schemes in the plan the ministers or even the Chief Minister gives the nod. But when the plan is finalised it does not include those schemes for which a demand had been raised in the Board meetings. Over the years several legislators have raised this issue on the floor of the Assembly. And the treasury benches are quick in dishing out assurances on rectifying the wrong but the mistakes are repeated. These board meetings have simply been reduced to get-togethers where members, ministers and bureaucrats enjoy sumptuous dishes prepared by the Hospitality and Protocol Department. Whenever board members want to see some of their schemes included in the plan they ar e told that those schemes cannot be taken in hand because of cash crunch. The Sheikh had introduced the District Development Board meetings for facilitating people to have interaction with the cabinet ministers. He had realised that it was not possible for people living in remote villages to come to the state capitals and meet the ministers. He would, therefore, see to it that all the cabinet ministers were present in the Board meetings. Besides this the meetings used to be held in different areas of the district. In recent years it has not been made mandatory for the Chief Minister and all the cabinet ministers to be present in the Board meetings.
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