The Hindu : `Devolve more powers to panchayats'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jan 26, 2004

Karnataka

Karnataka - Others

`Devolve more powers to panchayats'

By Our Special Correspondent

RANEBENNUR, JAN. 25. "Sankalpa Conference on Gram Ganarajya", a three-day event which began here on Friday, expressed scepticism over the Belur Declaration on devolving more powers to panchayatraj institutions.

The conference has been organised by the Gram Ganarajya Vedike (GGV), a State-level organisation working for the empowerment of panchayatraj institutions, the National Committee for Protection of Natural Resources (NCPNR), and the Jan Vikas Andolan (JVA).

Speakers who addressed the gathering were of the view that the declaration was more of an "election gimmick" than a serious attempt to devolve more power, finances, and functions to urban local bodies and panchayatraj institutions to enable them to function as self-governments as mandated in the Constitution.

People should bring pressure on the Government to ensure that the promises made in the declaration were met, they said. M.K. Prasad of the Kerala Shastra Sahitya Parishad and President of NCPNR, who inaugurated the conference, called upon non-governmental organisations involved in the movement for the empowerment of panchayatraj institutions to take the campaign to various parts of the State as done by the parishad in Kerala.

In his keynote address, S.R. Hiremath, President of the andolan, said people should pressure the Government to part with its powers.

Quoting a report prepared by the Task Force on Devolution of Powers constituted by the Union Government, Mr. Hiremath said that between the Union and the State governments, Rs. 71,000 crore was being spent on schemes in areas which fell within the realms of the panchayatraj institutions. As much as ninety per cent of the funding should have gone to the local bodies for the execution of the programmes, he said.

R.M. Patil and Hanumanthu of the vedike said the movement to empower panchayatraj institutions should be intensified to ensure that the State Government parted with more powers.

Meanwhile, NCPNR has written to the All-India Congress Committee President, Sonia Gandhi, seeking the implementation of the provisions of the 73rd amendment to the Constitution in all Congress-ruled States.

The committee said that despite enforcing the Karnataka Panchayatraj Act, 1993, the State had failed to take steps to empower panchayatraj institutions, and was yet to devolve finances, powers, and functions fully.

The committee said there was an urgent need for all political parties to redeem the pledge taken in Parliament in December 1992 in this connection. People would be left with no option but to launch non-cooperation and civil disobedience movements if the governments failed to do so, it said.

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