INTRODUCTION-
This article is an attempt at understanding how the Panchayati Raj system developed in contemporary India between 1947 and 1992- when the passage of the 73rd Amendment in 1992 led to creation of the rural local government system via Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI).
Panchayati Raj is the basic unit of administration in a system of governance. The Constitutional (73rd Amendment) Act 1992 came into force in India on 24 April 1993 to provide constitutional status to the PRIs. This act was extended to the Panchayats in the tribal areas of eight states, namely Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Rajasthan from 24 December 1996. Currently, the Panchayati Raj system exists in all the states of India except Nagaland, Meghalaya, Mizoram and in all Union Territories except Delhi.
It has three levels: Gram Panchayat (village level), Mandal Parishad or the Block Samiti or Panchayat Samiti (block level) and Zilla Parishad (district level). The term "Panchayati Raj" is an ancient concept adopted by the people of India for the local administration of a village. Raj means "rule". Mahatma Gandhi advocated the Panchayati Raj, a decentralised form of the Government where each village is responsible for its own affairs. The term for such a vision was Gram Swaraj. The leader of the Panchayat was generally called the Mukhiya or Sarpanch, and is an elected position.
PHASES OF DEVELOPMENT-
The Community Development Programme-
Post-independence, the first major development programme launched in India was Community Development Programme in 1952. Core philosophy was overall development of rural areas and people’s participation.
This programme was formulated to provide an administrative framework through which the government might reach to the district, tehsil / taluka and village level. All the districts of the country were divided into “Development Blocks” and a “Block Development Officer (BDO)” was made in charge of each block. Below the BDO were appointed the workers called Village Level Workers (VLW) who were responsible to keep in touch with 10-12 villages. So, a nationwide structure was started to be created.
Thousands of BDOs and VLW’s were trained for the job of carrying out array of government programmes and make it possible to reach the government to villages. Top authority was “Community Development Organization” and a Community Development Research Centre was created with best academic brains of the country at that time. However, this programme was not successful. Its failure was directly attributed to inadequacy of avenues of popular participation in local level programmes of rural development.
Balwant Rai Mehta Committee Report-
In 1957, the Balwant Rai Mehta Committee was appointed to study the Community Development Programmes and National Extension Services Programme especially from the point of view of assessing the extent of people’s participation and to recommend the creation of the institutions through which such participation could be achieved.
Balwant Rai Mehta was a freedom fighter who participated in the Bardoli Satyagraha. He is credited for pioneering the concept the Panchayati Raj in India and also known as “Father of Panchayati Raj in India”. The Balwant Rai Mehta committee recommended a 3-tier Panchayati Raj System which included-
Zila Parishad at the District Level
Panchayat Samiti at the Block/ Tehsil/ Taluka Level
Gram Panchayat at the Village Level
But the committee did not insist on a rigid pattern. It recommended that the states were to be given freedom to choose and develop their own patterns as per the local conditions. The committee recommended that the above 3 tiers were to be organically linked together through an instrument of indirect election. The committee recommended that the Gram Panchayats were to be constituted with directly elected representatives, whereas the Panchayat Samiti and Zila Parishad were to be constituted with indirectly elected members. The status of the Panchayat samiti was to be of that of an executive body, while the status of the Zila Parishad was to be that of an advisory body. The Zila Parishad was to be chaired by the District Collector. These bodies were to be given adequate resources to carry out the functions and fulfill the responsibilities. Thus we see, that most of the recommendations of the Balwant Rai Mehta committee reflect in the Panchayati Raj institutions, as we see them today.
The recommendations of the Balwant Rai Mehta committee were accepted by the National Development Council in 1958 and subsequently Rajasthan in 1959 became the first state in India to launch the Panchayati Raj. The institution of Panchayati Raj was inaugurated by Jawahar lal Nehru on October 2, 1959 in Nagaur District of Rajasthan. Nine days later, Andhra Pradesh became the second state to launch Panchayati Raj at Shadnagar near Hyderabad. The launch of the Panchayati Raj institutions was a thumping success and soon the states started adopting the institutions. This continued for the first few years and after that the institutions started crippling due to lack of resources, political will, and bureaucratic apathy and change in government’s priorities. The rural elite dominated the system and the benefit of the development schemes was not able to reach to the whole of the country. The legitimacy of the Panchayati Raj institutions came under scrutiny.
Santhanam Committee: 1963
The Balwant Rai Mehta Committee was followed by the Santhanam Committee. This committee was formed by the Government of India to solve the following important practical questions.
How and in what ratio, the revenues were to be handed over to PRIs?
What was to be the criteria for sanction of grants to them by State Government?
What would be the status of the Financial Relations between the different levels of PRIs?
So, in a nutshell, the Santhanam Committee’s focus of study was the financial matters of the PRIs. The important recommendations this committee made are as follows:
The Panchayati Raj Finance Corporations were to be established.
All the grants at the state level were to be sent in a consolidated form to various PRIs
Panchayats were to have power to levy special tax which were to be based upon the land revenue and house tax etc.
Ashok Mehta Committee: 1977
In December 1977, the Janta Government appointed a 13 member committee which was headed by Mr. Ashok Mehta. The committee was appointed to determine:
What are the causes responsible for poor performance of the PRIs?
What measures were to be taken to improve performance of the PRIs?
The Ashok Mehta committee submitted its report in 1978 and made more than 130 recommendations. 3-tier was to be replaced by the 2-tier system. The upper tier would be the Zila Parishad at the district level and lower tier were to be the Mandal Panchayats, which were to be a Panchayat of group of villages covering a population of 15000 to 20000.
The committee recommended that the base of the Panchayati Raj system was to be in the form of Mandal Panchayats. Each Mandal panchayat were to contain 15 members directly elected by the people. The head of the Mandal Panchayat were to be elected among the members themselves.
Zila Parishad would be the executive body and made responsible for planning at the district level. The Zila Parishad members would be elected as well as nominated. The MLA and MPs of the area would have the status of Ex-officio chairmen of the Zila Parishads. Development functions were to be transferred to the Zila Parishad and all development staff were to work under its control and supervision.
Thus, we see that the Ashok Mehta Committee recommended abolishing the middle trier i.e. blocks as unit of administration. It recommended that the district was to be the first point for decentralization under popular supervision below the state level. In the matters of Finance, the committee said that compulsory items of taxation were to be put under the jurisdiction of the Zila Parishads so that they are able to mobilize their own financial resources. One more important recommendation of this committee was that there were to be Nyaya Panchayats as separate bodies from that of development Panchayats. The Nyaya Panchayats were to be presided over by a qualified judge.
G V K Rao Committee: 1985
The Ashok Mehta Committee was followed by GVK Rao Committee in 1985. This committee was appointed prior to the 7th Five Year Plan, to recommend on an integrated concept for growth and poverty alleviation. The committee had the following tasks:
Examine the existing administration structure for rural development and detail out the functions and revenue resources of the PRIs
Recommend the administrative arrangements for rural development and poverty alleviation programmes.
Recommend on revitalizing the PRI.
The recommendations of the GVK Rao Committee were as follows:
The district level Zila Parishads were to be the basic unit for policy planning and programme implementation. The Zila Parishads were to be the pivotal body for the scheme of the democratic decentralization.
The State level planning functions were to be transferred to the Zila Parishad for effective decentralized planning.
So, in a nutshell, the GVK Rao committee was of the view of making the district as the pole of democratic centralization. The committee also recommended that a post of District Development Commissioner was to be created, who would work as the CEO of the Zila Parishad.
The District Development Commissioner was to be the in charge of all the developmental departments at the district level. This was a big deviation from the previous committees which recommended the lower bodies as bases and assigned the major role to the Panchayats and Mandal Panchayats in the development. Next year, report of one more important committee came out.
L M Singhvi Committee: 1986
A year after the GVK Rao committee, the Government of India set up Dr. L M Singhvi Committee. The prime minister was Rajiv Gandhi. The LM Singhvi Committee was of the view that the Panchayati Raj Institutions declined in the country because of –
Absence of a clear concept
Absence of political will
Lack of Research, evaluation and monitoring.
The committee was in favour of making ways for the PRIs to ensure the availability of the enough financial resources. The LM Singhvi Committee is best known for recommending the constitutional status for Panchayats. This was virtually the first committee after decades of India’s experiments with the decentralization which found the “Gram Sabhas” as the “incarnation of the direct democracy”.
Its recommendations were:
The PRIs were to be recognized, protected and preserved constitutionally. A new chapter were to be added in the Constitution of India which were to enshrine the provisions to ensure free, regular and fair elections in the PRIs.
For revenue procedures, the Singhvi Committee was of the view that there were to be optional and compulsory levies which were to be entrusted to the PRIs. For initial years, the state government may levy on behalf of the PRIs and disburse money to them. This disbursement were to be based upon the recommendations of the State Finance Commissions.
For Jurisdiction of the PRI’s, Nyaya Panchayats were to be established for a cluster of villages.
Gram Sabha was to be the embodiment of the direct democracy and the village Panchayats were to be more organized. Gram Sabha were to be given importance.
72nd Amendment Bill and 73rd Amendment Act
The 72nd amendment Bill was enshrined as a comprehensive amendment to the Constitution and was introduced on 10th September, 1991 by G. Venkat Swamy. The bill was passed in the Lok Sabha on December 22, 1992 and the Rajya Sabha on December 23, 1992. After having been ratified by 17 state assemblies this bill came into effect on April 24, 1993.
Thus, April 24, 1993 became the landmark day in the history of Panchayati Raj in India. By this amendment act, a new schedule - Part IX , was inserted in the Constitution of India enshrining the provisions for the Panchayats.
CONCLUSION- Thus, the creation and evolution of Panchayati Raj system in India can be traced back to The Community Development Programme and the slew of committees starting from the Balwant Rai Mehta committee to the LM Singhvi Committee that led to passage of the 73rd Amendment in 1992. Panchayati Raj system in India has become an important part of local self-governance in India. It is due to these committees and programmes that decentralisation of powers and development of rural regions in India could happen.
BIBLIOGRAPHY-
1- The Hans India, Panchayati Raj Institutions, March 18, 2015, available at http://www.thehansindia.com/posts/index/Hans/2015-03-18/Panchayati-Raj-institutions/138074 (Last visited on July 20, 2017).
2- General Knowledge Today, Evolution of Panchayati Raj System in India, March 21, 2016, available at https://www.gktoday.in/blog/evolution-of-panchayati-raj-system-in-india/ (Last visited on July 20, 2017).
3- Shodhganga, CHAPTER-III PANCHAYATI RAJ – A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE, available at http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/2392/11/11_chapter%203.pdf (Last visited on July 20, 2017).
4- IIPA, Role of Panchayat Bodies in Rural Development since 1959, October 22, 2011, available at http://www.iipa.org.in/upload/Theme%20Paper%202011.pdf (Last visited on July 20, 2017).
About The Author
Saurabh Kumar is from 2013-2018 batch WBNUJS. He has keen interest in Family Law and Constitutional Law as well as Strategic affairs.
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