The Hindu : Kerala News : Training for MLAs on decentralisation

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Mar 06, 2005

Kerala

Kerala

Training for MLAs on decentralisation

By Our Staff Reporter

THRISSUR, MARCH. 5. The Speaker, Therambil Ramakrishnan, has announced that a training programme on decentralised governance for the MLAs from the State will be held at the Kerala Institute of Local Administration (KILA), near here, on April 23 and 24.

Inaugurating an international training programme on "decentralised governance and poverty alleviation" at KILA today, Mr. Ramakrishnan said the Lok Sabha Speaker, Somnath Chatterjee, would inaugurate the training programme. The Union Minister for Panchayat Raj and Petroleum and Natural Gas, Mani Sankar Iyer, would also attend the inaugural session.

Mr. Ramakrishnan announced that similar training programmes would be organised later for the MLAs from other States. Emphasising the importance of decentralisation, the Speaker said it was the most effective mechanism by which poverty could be alleviated as it provided opportunities for planning to be started from the grass-roots level and for ensuring greater participation of the people in implementing projects.

He said decentralisation had improved delivery of basic services to the poor and made the Government machinery respond fast to the people's needs apart from exposing corruption and reducing absenteeism.

Kerala experience

Pointing out that Kerala has been trying to use decentralised governance as a tool to reduce poverty, the Speaker said with decentralisation of plan, schemes targeting had improved and costs had declined marginally. Poverty eradication and ensuring safety-nets to the poor had now become a local Government responsibility and the role of the State Government had become that of a facilitator. Reservation of seats for women, SC and ST sections in local bodies had been very much instrumental in bringing quality improvement in the countryside. However, there was a feeling that the decentralisation and other related reforms had not adequately helped the marginalised sections such as the SC, ST, fish-workers and agricultural labourers, the Speaker said.

The Planning Board member C. P. John said if the Central fund devolution agencies such as the Finance Commission and the Planning Commission did not extend adequate assistance to the States like Kerala which had made gains in poverty alleviation to enable them to sustain their gains, they (those States) would be persuaded to perpetuate poverty.

Delegates

The President of the All India Institute for Local Self-Government, Mumbai, J. V. Modi, the Director of the Sri Lanka Institute of Local Governance, Cashian Herath, the Mulankunnathukavu panchayat president, Ratnamma Venugopal, the KILA Director, P. P. Balan and P. Lakshmanan were among those who spoke at the inaugural session. Delegates from Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh are participating in this first training batch. The participants from Pakistan will join the second batch of training programme beginning in the first week of April.

Thirty-five delegates will participate in each of the batches of the seven-day training programme. The topics to be covered in the programmes include "Local governance - global/Asian scenario,'' "Gandhian concept of village self-rule,'' and "Participatory planning in Kerala.'' There will be sharing of experience on the local governance system in Sri Lanka, Nepal and India. Field visits have been arranged to enable the delegates to understand the various projects that are being implemented through the local bodies in the State. KILA has undertaken this programme as per the requests from the similar training institutes in other countries.

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