MARGAO
The state government and the village panchayats are bracing up to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Gram Swaraj Abhiyan and the 73rd Amendment to the Constitution of India, but the same old question has come to haunt the grassroots bodies “ has these gram panchayats received all the powers and functions envisaged under the 73rd Constitutional Amendment?
A local NGO, Goa Panchayati Raj Institution, says the actual pace of devolution of power has been slow till date.
Goa PRI’s convenor J Santan Rodrigues said that most of the powers to these grassroots bodies have been devolved only on paper. “It is indeed said that while the panchayats are commemorating the 25th anniversary of the 73rd Constitutional Amendment, the various functionaries are still accountable to their line departments and not to the panchayats. No attempt at harmonization of state laws with the Panchayat Raj Act of the state has been undertaken so far,” Santan said, while saying that effectiveness of the 73rd Constitutional Amendment would largely depend upon crucial factors, besides political will and attitude of the bureaucracy,” he said.
Santan lamented that the District Planning Committees have been lying defunct in both the districts for want of government guidelines and the lack of will on the part of the officials to implement the DPCs in both letter and spirit. “The government may boast of devolving funds to the Zilla Panchayats, but that does not in any way stop the government from putting the DPCs in place, which is responsible for bottom to top planning, including spatial planning,” Santan added.
“There are around 1520 elected members of village Panchayats and 50 zilla panchayat members in Goa. Together, we can facilitate an effective democratic decentralization in local governance,” he said.
While calling upon the government to do a review process as early as possible and prepare a road map for the devolution of powers to the Panchayat Raj institutions as envisaged under the 73rd Constitutional Amendment, Santan said that parallel bodies such as the District Rural Development Agencies continue to exist independent of the panchayats and are power institutions.
