|
PUCL Bulletin,
October 2002
Decentralized
development in Uttarakhand
-- by K.N. Bhatt, GB Pant Social Science Institute, Allahabad
(.Excerpts)
Creation of Uttarakhand is, in fact, an outcome of the peoples' long struggle
for survival amidst the extreme conditions of regional economic backwardness
and high rates of unemployment. The local people envisaged the political
entity of the new state as an instrument to fulfill their aspirations
of development and quality of life. Almost two years have been completed
after the coming of the state into existence. How the new state has performed
during these two years? Whether the people have started realizing their
aspirations, for the achievement of which they struggled? Has the successive
governments of the new states initiated a process of peoples' empowerment
and ensuring their right to development? If not what is the alternative
course of action left with the people of Uttarakhand? These are some of
the vital questions, which today bother the minds of the common peoples
belonging to the area.
In the wake of wide ranging social inequalities, regional disparities,
unemployment and poverty, nations through out the world presently are
striving to rebuilt their socio-economic order from below. If the aspirations
of the people are to be fulfilled, the vision must evolve from the grassroots
level. The need of the hour in the new state therefore is to ensure actual
sharing of power with the people, seeking their fullest participation
and fulfilling their hopes and felt needs. This article analyses some
contemporary theoretical perspectives of participatory development and
social justice. How the decentralized democratic institutions of development
could be created at the local level within the existing constitutional
provisions In Indian states to bring in increased productivity, efficiency
and equity together? Can a new state like Uttarakhand where ideal socio-
economic conditions exist for an efficient evolution of decentralized
development, learn lessons from some success stories of development from
below? The following paragraphs analyze a theoretical perspective of decentralized
development and social justice, experiences of centralized development
planning in India, existing constitutional provisions for decentralized
development, implementation of these provisions in practice and evolving
an alternative process of decentralized development in Uttarakhand.
.......
These contemporary perspectives for development suggest a qualitatively
different approach, where considerations of equity and justice are primary
determinants of development as they shape its entire structure. It is
assumed that if the development process is to be participatory, decisions
have to be taken with the full involvement of the beneficiaries. This
requires an examination of ends and means of development. The responsibility
to create the conditions for such a process of development lies with the
state, not actually to realize it. Individuals themselves are the only
ones who can achieve that. Local community management for development
is considered to bring about equity, productivity, and efficiency together
to ensure social justice. The common belief of the policy makers regarding
trade-off between efficiency and equity is challenged and it is equivocally
established that the process of decentralised development is essential
for a reasonably efficient economy even under the constraints posed by
the forces of globalisation.
Unfortunately, the development policies even today are mostly dominated
by considerations of maximizing growth of GNP, increased industrial production,
improved technology, and aggregate consumption. The notions of equity,
justice, participation, and freedom are made peripheral and raised only
as after-thoughts in the approach to national and international development
policies. However, right from the time of the emergence of development
theories, there has always been the theorists of eminence who believed
that the idea of development goes far beyond growth in output and material
wealth. They included welfare and equity into the process of development
and advocated for the improvement of the lot of the poor and give people
a wider range of choices. It is perceived here that the process of decentralization
alone can provide the necessary ethos and institutional framework, in
which civil society comes in to its own, thinks of the state as a necessary
and essential instrument for ordering the public domain, and in which
cultural diversity of the large society is given its full play. 'The process
of decentralized development thus involves delegation of decision-making
powers to the sub-state levels with corresponding devolution of resources.
It seeks improvement in productivity through speedy absorption of modem
technology, better allocation and utilization of the available resources
and greater impact of such productivity improvements on the living conditions
of the weaker section of population'.
Experiences of Development Planning in India
India initiated the process of planned development in 1951 with a centrally
planed mixed economy model. During the course of national movement, however,
democratic decentralisation with the village as a basic unit of administration
had remained central to the ideological framework of our national leaders.
Graam Swaraaj (Village Republics), decentralized planning for development
and equity were considered as the real solution for India's problems.
Despite Gandhiji's clear propagation of the ideal and country's great
legacy of village governance from the past, the ideal of Panchayati Raj
could find a place in the constitution of India only under the Directive
Principles of the State Policy, rather than making it mandatory under
the legally enforceable part of the constitution.
During the planned
development efforts of the fifties only, the study team headed by Balwant
Rai G. Mehta on Community Development Projects and National Extension
Services, 1957, had again emphasized the need for democratic decentralisation
through setting up of Panchayati Raj institutions for ensuring public
participation in community works and an efficient implementation of development
programmes. The recommendations of the Mehta Committee and a number of
similar other expert committees on Panchayati Raj were left for implementation
on the goodwill of the state governments, in the absence of a proper Constitutional
safeguard and enthusiasm for sharing power with lower units of local self-governments,
the state governments in turn reluctantly experimented with the idea.
Consequently, a myth was gradually developed that the centralised governance
and development only can benefit the disadvantaged and the poor.
Five decades of our planned development experience thus reveal that the
popular participation in development planning remained a distant dream.
Our state sponsored top-bottom planning model gradually witnessed a highly
centralized system of development with ever increasing administrative
controls. As rightly pointed out by an analyst 'the upward shift of functions
from the district to state and from state to the Union has not in the
least contributed either to strengthening the centre or to making planning
more effective. Indeed, it has had the opposite effect on both counts.
The machinery of government became excessively flabby, at the centre as
well as states. Planning has become so out of touch with ground reality
that it is in danger of losing credibility. The strategy followed in the
first four decades of planning, in fact, is now being squarely blamed
for our relatively poor growth and mounting balance of payments problem,
which finally led to the adoption of structural adjustment programmes
in July 1991 with wide raging packages of reforms in trade, industry,
finance, and other important sectors of the economy. It is now clearly
realized that the development performance of India would have been much
better and distribution of benefits more equitable, if only we had effective
planning at the sub-state, particularly at the grassroots level.
......
After an ongoing delay of over 45 years in post independent India, the
ushering in of the Gandhian Vision of Panchayati Raj Institutions through
73rd and 74th constitutional Amendment Acts in 1992 is a bold and historic
initiative. It seeks to deliver power to the people to realise their right
to development. The Indian Constitution has been amended for creating
the autonomous institutions of local self-governments and decentralized
development both in rural and urban areas respectively. Provisions under
the constitutional mandate envisage not only the full participation of
people in decision-making process, preparation of economic development
plans, and ensuring social justice, but also in the execution of such
plans. The Acts also specially lay provisions for establishing an autonomous
State Finance Commission for sharing of financial resources directly to
these local bodies and make them economically independent. In short, the
real spirit of the constitutional mandate is to ensure a development policy,
which creates sustainable improvement in the quality of life of the people,
and evolves a social order based on the principles of equality, prosperity,
and security.
The relevant sections of the Constitution of India under Part IX, Part
IXA, the 11th and the 12th Schedules, underscore the provisions for ensuring
true democracy at the grass roots level and transferring power to the
people. Article 243 G and Article 243 W pointedly define the power, authority
and responsibilities of Panchayats and municipalities, etc. respectively.
It states that subject to the provisions of the Constitution, the Legislature
of a State may, by law, endow the Panchayats and the municipalities with
such powers and authority as may be necessary to enable them to function
as institutions of self-government. The 11th Schedule and 12th schedule
listed therein envisages for the transfer of multiple developmental activities
to be performed by the Panchayats and urban local bodies respectively.
Before the 73rd, 74th constitutional amendment Acts, 'it was not mandatory
to elect office holders below state level at district, sub-district, village
of municipal levels. In other words according to an analyst, Indian democracy
was a parliamentary system at central and state levels with bureaucratic
governance at lower levels. The current power pyramid, needs to be reversed.
Everything that can be decided and implemented optimally at the local
level should be kept at that level leaving the rest to be taken up at
the district, and thereafter the state level. Only the residua 'powers
should belong to the centre... It is also necessary to move beyond the
confines of the representative-democracy. Forums must be created so that
ordinary citizen can directly intervene, deliberate, and decide the governance
and development processes. Democracy, from being a ritual of periodic
elections, needs to be extended to the grassroots levels'.
Implementation of the Acts
The Constitutional mandate with its wide-ranging prospects for evolving
a true and transparent democratic social order requires the state governments
to introduce legislative measures immediately for the revitalization of
the institutions of local self-governance. It is, first and foremost,
very encouraging to find turn of the state government to activate these
democratic institutions at the local level for transforming the practice
and quality of development in the country. Commenting on the post 74th
constitutional amendments experiences, Drez and Sen have rightly pointed
out that: 'It is, first and foremost, very encouraging to find plentiful
of evidence of active engagements with the new possibilities of local
democracies on the part of the Indian public... However, the experience
confirms that the results of state initiatives to promote local democracy
are highly contingent social context. Indeed, the reforms associated with
the Panchayati Raj amendments have followed very different course in different
states. At one extreme, Bihar has barely reached the stage of organising
Panchayat elections. Kerala on the other hand, has gone far beyond the
constitutional requirements and initiated a visionary campaign of 'decentralized
planning' through Panchayati Raj institutions'. It is unfortunate to note
that despite an active engagement of the common public most of the state
States governments have failed in their duty in truly transferring power
to the people even after a decade of the constitutional mandate.
What has happened in practice, in these once again is merely a bureaucratic
transfer of power that treats the lower level units of the self-governments
just as another units of bureaucratic control. The system rather than
being responsible to the people, who formed them, still remain loyal in
turn to upper echelons in the bureaucratic hierarchy. It has generally
resulted in utter failure and mal-functioning of existing local self-governments
in the country.
On the other hand, the example of Kerala, where these constitutional provisions
have actually been implemented after 1996-97 with the aim of evolving
a system of participatory development, presents a fruitful model of social
development. After the adoption of this system, the state government transfers
about 35 to 40 percent of its total plan funds directly to the Panchayats
to facilitate these institutions for undertaking development projects
at the local level. 'During 1997-98, the total resources devolved worked
out to Rs. 10,250 million and in 1998-99 Rs.11,780 million, not counting
funds from centrally sponsored schemes and the loans that could be taken
out by the local bodies with government guarantee. Before 1996-97, their
share in the state's annual plan averaged only around Rs. 200 million.
The small state of Kerala today has become a unique example of people's
participatory model of development with high levels of human and social
development. A Summary of the proceedings of a five days International
Conference on Democratic Decentralisation in Kerala organised during May,
2000 in Thiruvananthapuram reveals that: 'the Kerala experience is demonstrating
that the efforts in the devolution of power and finances to local communities,
when sustained by political will, can prove that local resistance is also
an effective response to the market driven logic of globalisation which
has little place for the felt needs of the people... The role of the local
bodies offers today the only hope in benevolent, decentralised state's
presence, where the centre may hold and the peripheries may continue to
define the political vision and trajectories of economic growth and the
distributional gains of it...
The democratic decentralisation
campaign in Kerala will be significant in the history of India for it
establishes a politics of social change which restructures the systems
of power of production and relations, especially between government, the
state and the people who image the alternatives and build them. Decentralisation
is ultimately going back to the people for a referendum, and, in the last
instance, this is a political issue, not just for Kerala but also for
all India.
Initiating Decentralized Development in Uttarakhand
It is the first and foremost duty of a new state coming into existence
after the 73rd, 74th constitutional amendments Acts to review its existing
system of development and governance. The continuation of the provisions
for merely a bureaucratic governance at sub-state level units of administration
would not lead anywhere. If the new state of Uttarakhand fails to initiate
a process of decentralized development and peoples' empowerment in the
true spirit of the constitution, the local people will remain in a state
of deprivation with the widespread conditions of regional economic backwardness,
poverty, and unemployment. The success story cited above in case of Kerala,
in addition to a bold and historic initiative by the state government,
is attributed by some analyst to various positive socio-economic conditions
existent in the state. These factors include high literacy rates, sharply
reduced deprivation and absolute poverty, better medical and health facilities,
successful land reforms, mass organizations to strengthen the case for
local democracy, and better redistributive policies of the government
for social sector planning including social provisioning of education,
health, economic assets, improved working conditions, and bargaining power
of the labour force.
The existing socio-economic attributes in Uttarakhand, like Kerala, also
suggest an ideal condition for immediately starting the process of decentralized
development in the new state. During the course of past two decades, literacy
and educational levels in Uttarakhand have recorded dramatic achievements.
The state today ranks among the top ten Indian states in terms of higher
literacy rates. This may be supplemented from the provisional Censes,
2001 totals, which show an overall literacy rate of 72.28 per cent with
respective ratios of 84.01 per cent for males and 60.26 per cent for females
in Uttarakhand. Similarly, the tremendous potential of natural resources
could be transformed into wealth by the touch of a highly disciplined
and educated human labour force in the economy of the state. The sturdy,
healthy, well educated, and laborious hill women is undisputedly accepted
as the practical work force in the area. The varying altitudes, vegetation,
soils, climate, beautiful landscape and geophysical features of the area,
extending from the snowy Himalayan peaks to the highly fertile foot-fills,
the Bhabhar, Tarai, and Duns, present a unique potential for initiating
a host of cultivation, manufacturing, and production activities.
Apart from the abundance of natural resources and well-educated human
resource base, a rich cultural and social heritage can enormously contribute
to the success of participatory governance in the state. The hill society
has a prolonged tradition of close community living and harmony with its
natural environment. Traditional village Panchayats and forest Panchayats
have performed well in bringing social welfare and delivering justice
to the people. Law and order even today is managed in the rural areas
of the mountainous part by combining revenue and police administration.
The people belonging to the area are trusted everywhere for their honesty,
hard work, communal harmony, and tradition of community living. In case
of social hierarchy of rich and poor and asset distribution, class-gaps
do not exist so sharply as is the case in other sates of India. Distribution
of land is almost equal. Only about 13 percent of the total geographical
area is under cultivation, owned by the individual households. Under the
decentralized system of development, provincial government will have to
transfer common property rights of the land to the local self- governments.
In fact, most of the land under government control including reserve forests
of today needs to be transferred to the village and urban local self governments
to be managed, protected and developed by themselves without any bureaucratic
interference. Similarly, the property rights in case of water resources
also need to be given back to these local self-governments.
The state could make
legal provisions under its Panchayat Raj Act for the transfer of property
rights of the courses of the river valleys falling within the respective
boundaries of the sub-state level units of governments.
Only after ascertaining the property rights under the law in case of jal,
jangal, zamin the new state could make the system of democratic governance
and development a reality. The peculiar geophysical features widely scattered
natural resources, village habitations and varying ecosystem of Uttarakhand
also necessitate devolution of power to the people to protect the flight
of capital from the area and for managing the economy according to local
needs. Fullest participation of people and their empowerment could ensure
the twin objectives of creating employment opportunities and a speedy
increase in production, asset creation, and value addition.
The higher echelons
of the sate machinery may concentrate on development of basic infrastructure
facilities, encouraging research and development activities and providing
people access to healthy markets in order to fetch better prices for their
produce. Failure to deliver power to the people at the foundation stage
of the new state may again alienate and frustrate the local people. The
flight of capital may experience more accelerated pace and the eco-sensitive
Himalayan zones may lead to further destruction in coming years, particularly
after strengthening of the globalized market forces.
Conclusion
The failure of the centralized state planning, apart from other things,
has primarily paved the way for today's dominant neo-classical paradigm
of competitive markets as an alternative, where the states have practically
no role to play. However, the available literature on the theme clearly
suggests that there existed no situation even in the so-called pure capitalist
economies of the world, where market forces operated under the ideal conditions.
Each nation operates its political economy within certain regulated framework
in accordance with the required socio-economic reality.
The market mechanisms
could be effectively utilized to ensure distributive justice in a democratic
way. Therefore, an ideal alternative model of development for a new state
like Uttarakhand would be a combination of decentralized development with
a healthy exposure to market forces. After the initiation of people's
campaign for decentralized development in 1996, Kerala is demonstrating
a unique and successful model of decentralized planning for social development
to the world in our own country. Several other such lessons for development
from below could be found and innovated for the ownership and management
of an economy suitable to our social realities which may be different
from the sole state ownership on the one hand and unrestricted private
ownership on the other for ensuring people their right to development
and social justice.
In order to evolve such a people's participatory and transparent process
of development, the new state needs to initiate reforms at two levels.
First, the state legislature would be required to pass a comprehensive
law for the democratic devolution of power to the people for creating
institutions of local self-governments in the true sprit of the 73rd &
74th constitutional amendment Acts. Secondly, start a massive campaign
for the development planning from these grassroots level institutions
and educate people for a comprehensive technical exercises of making sectoral
plans, assessing local needs, financial outlays and implementation, monitoring,
and evaluation of their own development projects. Adoption of these measures
certainly requires a strong political will amongst the ruling political
elite in the state, as neither the existing elected representatives nor
the bureaucracy would easily like to share power with the people. If the
state fails to evolve these constitutional sub-state level political institutions
for grassroots level governance in near future, the only alternative course
of action, the local people are left with, is to organise themselves for
yet another struggle for their own empowerment and development.
Evolving a process
of decentralized development remains the only hope for the local people
which can be used not only to ensure collective property rights over their
natural resources of Jal, Jangal, Zamin, but also bring in economic prosperity
and social harmony.
(The author has used the name 'Uttarakhand' instead of 'Uttaranchal'.
This was the term used in the movement for the creation of the state.
Common people still adhere to the name they had coined.
References have been omitted due to space constraint. -- Chief Editor)
Home
| Index
|