Strengthening the Roots NT-Editorial-2 June, 2005 In all that political turbulence that this state has witnessed over the past several months, few of us have had the time to think whether democracy in real terms is taking shape at the grassroots level. It is by now an established fact that politics at the apex level can only get worse and worse owning to the lack of popular control over switchover of sides by individual politicians. It is clear that things cannot change unless democratic forces are strengthened at the lowest level - in other words, in the villages. A change has taken place in government; but there is little hope that the new government would accelerate the decentralization of power down to the panchayat level in order to strengthen the panchayats. The panchayats in Goa, as in several other states, except Rajasthan and som pockets in West Bengal, have been denied their promised powers. The apex politicians and bureaucrats have been extremely reluctant to devolve powers to them, although they never tire of firing off speeches advocating strengthening the grassroots democracy. The panchayats have to be empowered for consolidation of democracy in the first place, since without that there is no possibility of involvement of people in the development process. They cannot be used merely as an extension of the governance at the apex level. The tragedy is that instead of panchayats influencing the apex level politics, it is the other way round. In view of very little independence and economic power, the panchayat leaders get aligned with this or that political party. The normal trend among them is to align with the ruling party so that they could obtain favours of the ministers and bureaucrats at the apex level and demonstrate to the people that they have delivered benefits to the people. No wonder, with every change in the political complexion of the government , some of the panchayat leaders switch their loyalty to the ruling party.
Unless powers are devolved down to the grassroots, this kind of political corruption will continue. In order to create a better system of governance, we have to work toward devolution of power. In the United States and West Europe, local city and village councils enjoy a great deal of power. There are areas defined in which their decision is final. Our own state Goa has already turned into a one large city. The villages are being fast urbanized. Yet the characteristic thing about society here is that a number of people still live in their native village homes. They commute to their workplace in town by private vehicles or public transport but they go back to their village after work. There is need therefore to develop the panchayats as well as the municipal councils as democratic institutions where the problems of the urbanizing rural Goans could be identified and solutions discussed and found. People of villages and towns must have powers through their elected representatives to make plans for the development. Recently in UP, a civil servant passed orders granting land to some agency ignoring the panchayat, but the panchayat officials fought back and ultimately the court had to intervene to decide in favour of the panchayats. The legislators and bureaucrats have to give up their resistance in the interest of consolidation of democracy at the grassroots. The panchayats have a constitutional status and it is everybody's duty to work towards giving these institutions what the law provides. Perhaps a beginning could be made by decentralizing powers in the water and sanitation, rainwater harvesting and epidemic prevention programmes. The panchayati raj was granted official status through an Act of Parliament nearly twelve years ago. But powers have not yet passed into the panchayats' hands. Their powers, instead of expanding, have been clipped; the elected executive and the bureaucracy have shown a negative attitude toward devolution of powers; in several cases the state government has encouraged parallel bodies for work that was meant to be done by the grassroots institutions. Due to the fact that the state governments have been reluctant to divest its powers, the panchayat bodies have ended up at best being agencies of implementation for their decisions. And there is no particular party which has stood in the way of the devolution of powers. All political parties have not gone beyond paying lip service to devolution. Across the country, there are 240,000 panchayats, 6000 intermediate level tiers and 500 district panchayats. They are but showpieces without state governments divesting their powers to them. Comments: by: Floriano Lobo goasuraj Very well said. Devolution of powers as stipulated in the 73rd and 74th. amendments of the constitution are far away from being executed. But one must realize that the Panchayat Raj Act 1994 itself is not a complete and refined document. Each state is left to the liberty of refining it. As the Panchayat Raj Act stands today in Goa, if powers are devolved to the Panchayats, every thing done will go a la IFFI in a JIFFY and all the funds will be gobbled away. Look at the Sarpanchas. They can get away with murder because the Director of panchayats is impotent and the Deputy Director of panchayat is doubly so. All they do as panchayat authorities is to act according to the telephone calls of the ministers and MLAs. 'Yes men' they are indeed. Can they be blamed? Nah! Blame it on the non-system prevailing for the past 43 years where funds gobling termites have become so brazen to make past era termites as toothless termites. Today we see a long time minister who was eating grass in the wilderness from being out of power is the panchayat minister. Yes I am talking of Mr. Subash Sirodkar. All these past five years, as a member of the legislative assembly, he has not uttered a single word as if his mouth was taped. And indeed, Manohar Parrikar had taped his mouth. His illegal ventures in putting up an institution, the pipe scam et al. Also there was the Anjana murder case which is still loitering and waiting to be solved, where it is rumoured that Shirodkar's driver or someone close to the driver was involved. As the state's transport minister previously, he has broken the back of Kadamba corporation to such an extent that it has been difficult for it to even crawl, forget about running. One lakh per day to take home is a lot of lining for the pocket indeed. Now that he is a minister again, Subash Shirodkar is talking of investing Rs. 20 crores in the panchayats for their development. Most of the crows will be flying in the wrong direction. As I have said earlier, his pockets must have developed sizeable cracks from the severe drought of all these years of being out of power. And what is very surprising is that he has suddenly found his tonsils to deliver big bashans. This time he has Goa Su-Raj and Lok Shakti to reconn with, for we shall be keeping a keen eye on his escapades and ventures as well as those of the other members of the 'gang of four'. Narvekar want an entire industrial estate. He has perhaps realised that his cricket stadium is on the shaky wicket. And if we have noticed, Mauvin Godinho has found his voice atlast. We shall yet see the 4th member of the gang, Mr. Zuwarkar, preening his feathers to fly. Goa Su-Raj Party has this to say re: Panchayats and Municipalities in it shortly to be released ROAD MAP: Excerpts: Gram/Zilla Panchayats - Municipalities: Panchayat Raj Act, 1994 shall be reviewed and effectively amended to reflect good governance. Salaries to panchayat members shall be reviewed in favour of a monthly honorarium to be paid to panchayat members/municipal councilors to encourage attendance at panchayat/Gram Sabha and municipal council meetings and programmes. Qualification and/or qualifying criteria for contesting panchayat/municipal elections shall be stipulated. Procedures and/or processes for litigations w.r.t. panchayats shall be simplified to eliminate lengthy delays. There shall be time limits spelled out for all procedures including for appeals to be heard at all levels. The existing provisions regarding any Sarpanch or Secretary being 'remiss' in their duties shall be strictly complied with. Municipal and panchayat bodies shall be dissolved and their operations taken over by the Municipal/Panchayat Administrators in all cases where these bodies resort to needless and frequent passing of 'No Confidence Motions' and toppling games to settle scores in rival power plays, until fresh elections are held whenever they are legally/officially next due. 73RD & 74TH Amendments: These amendments to the Constitution of India shall be fully implemented to ensure clean, merit-based, transparent, accountable governance both at grass-roots as well as at the Legislative Assembly and Cabinet levels. GSRP shall be in an ideal position to accomplish this task of devolution of powers to the Panchayats (Zilla/Gram) by virtue of its intent to exorcise Goa's civil administration from self-seekers and the corrupt. Explanation: The implementation of the above two constitutional amendments can never be expected from the present self-seeking government. If any government has the will to implement the amendments in toto, the following will happen: a) Since all the development funds will be transferred to the Gram/Zilla panchayats & Municipalities, all development projects will be taken up by these bodies. The legislators ( read MLAs) who handle these funds presently will have these taken out from their domain by the development commission and handed over to the grass-roots self governing bodies. Since there is no money to be made in the legislature through dishing out contracts, self-seekers will not be interested in contesting the legislative assembly seats. Instead the rush will be to contest the Gram/Zilla & Municipal seats. b) The legislative seats will be left for erudite, retired and/or persons who will want prestige more than money. Since laws and rules will be made by the legislature, stricter laws and rules will emerge from this august house where Gram/Zilla & Municipal members will not be able to make any money. The sentiment will be that of the dog in the manger. "If I cannot and will not make money at the cost of the people, I shall not allow anyone else to do so too" c) Since strict accountability will be introduced and since Gram/Zillas & Municipalities will not be able to misappropriate money from contracts, there will be less and less interest in contesting these seats by self-seekers. They will be better off seeking employment elsewhere or self-employment. d) Conscious citizens who normally shun the Gram/Zilla & Municipal positions will now be contesting these elections, their motto being that of being useful to the society at large coupled with prestige. Goa Su-Raj Party believes that those who were signatories to these two amendments had the interest of the people at heart and this party will endeavour to implement these amendments in toto to the best of its ability. --end--
