--- On Wed, 6/4/08, Mario Goveia <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> And don't give me Selma's cow cakes about the local
> Panchayats and Gram Sabhas being corrupt! To begin
> with they can't be any more corrupt than anyone else
> in government, and secondly, if they, comprised of
> your friends and neighbors, whom you can walk down and
> yell at at any time, are not responsive to the local
> villagers who elected them, how do you think those
> same villagers are going to wield any influence
> further up the bureaucratic food chain?
---------------------------------------
Mario dearest,
You're like those pitbulls, who having chewed off the wrong end of someone's
leg are reluctant to let go off it.
If I am so off the mark, then how come this comment appeared in the Goan
Observor and was posted on Goanet itself, which obviously you missed:
--------
"The Sangh Parivar was, for its own reasons, insisting that the GBA
should compel the Task Force to put in place a consultative process
whereby the village panchayats would be consulted. The secular
elements, knowing how corrupt and politicized the panchayat bodies
are, were in favour of seeking inputs of the gram sabhas rather than
the panchayat after the basic land-use pattern was drawn up."
--------
The reason why I am so against the devolution of power to these bodies is
because you are essentially giving legislative powers to village bodies of
governance, thereby making them mini-republics. By all means empower the
panchayats and gram sabhas if one must to executive overall policy, although
they've made a mess of that itself, but nothing more. Panchayats and gram
sabhas can have consultative powers and should indeed take an interest in the
myriad problems that local municipalities would look into such as garbage
collection, curtailing of malaria, dispensing of social-aid funds, etc.
One cannot circumvent the structure of democracy to address ad hoc problems and
then realise five years down the line, that we've created even bigger problems
to contend with.
selma
