The Hindu : A major step that will strengthen panchayats

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Sep 15, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Karnataka

A major step that will strengthen panchayats

By M. Madan Mohan

HUBLI Sept. 14. Involving gram panchayats in planning for drought relief works and in responding to the increasing number of suicide by farmers in the interior parts of the State is the nicest thing to have happened as far as panchayats and the two issues, which continue to baffle the Government, are concerned.

Ever since they were established under the Karnataka Panchayat Raj Act, 1993, these grassroots self-government institutions have had an identity of their own and found a meaningful purpose for their existence.

The decision to rope in panchayats taken at the last Cabinet meeting comes in the context of the efforts under way in the Government to empower them. The Government has taken a major step in amending the provisions of the Act to strengthen panchayats. The amending Bill enacted by the two Houses of the Legislature has received the assent of the Governor. And the latest initiative only strengthens the resolve of the Government.

Take the case of suicide by farmers, which North Karnataka has experienced in the past six or seven years, being reported for the first time from the southern parts of the State this year.

A typical phenomenon that has manifested exclusively in rural areas — suicide by farmers — was being ignored. The bureaucracy withdrew itself after showing some interest initially apparently on receiving word from the top that the Government might not be interested in it. As a result, no functionary at the district-level, including the Deputy Commissioner, took note of the phenomenon even as the number of such cases continued to rise.

It was not different with the elected representatives. Initially, the MLAs and Ministers used to call on bereaved families to condole the death of their kin. But they gave up the practice. The panchayat raj institutions at the zilla, taluk, and panchayat levels were insulated from the human tragedy unfolding around them in the interior parts of the State, and they hardly found it worthwhile to discuss the issue.

Even the committee constituted at the taluk level to go into the bona fides of such cases was exclusively made up of officials with none of the elected representatives ever involved or associated with it at any time. This resulted in distortions creeping into the assessment of claims with the committee more interested in rejecting the claims rather than looking at the problem with sympathy and understanding. There have been, for example, some classic cases in Haveri district where claims for compensation have been rejected on technical grounds.

This aberration in approach now gets corrected with the involvement of gram panchayats and their presidents in the assessment of claims for compensation. This is also expected to bring a nonofficial perspective to the issue that will help build confidence among distressed farmers.

The drought management policy of the Government always suffered from the non-involvement of the panchayat raj institutions. The Government, it has been observed, trusts the Deputy Commissioner and not the people's institutions such as the panchayat body to report on drought and its extent. It also depends on the Deputy Commissioner to suggest the place and pattern of relief works. The panchayat institutions seemed to be only agencies to implement work as suggested by the Deputy Commissioner with no scope to modify it. Even the allocated funds are released only to the Deputy Commissioner to be disbursed among various agencies.

Though officially the Deputy Commissioner took decisions on the basis of action reports prepared by zilla panchayats, in practical terms it meant that the officials were preparing them without consulting the people's representatives.

This deprived the panchayat institutions of a say in the implementation of works. One offshoot of the situation was the spurt in complaints of irregularities in the implementation of works. Doubts were raised about the number of people employed in the works. Some villagers also complained to the team deputed by the Union Government to study drought.

Under the circumstances, the move to involve panchayats in the implementation of drought relief works is expected to help clear the cobwebs which clouded the Government's approach to the problem.

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