Kerala 2005 - of Planning Commission

CHAPTER 9
DECENTRALISED GOVERNANCE AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
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to bottom-up, from centralised standardisation to local
diversity, and from blueprint to learning process’ (Chambers,
1992). It took people as the agency of development rather
than solely as the objects or the clients of development. Its
adoption in political economy is said to have followed the
increasing dissatisfaction with the extent of effectiveness
and equity effects of the erstwhile growth-mediated, trickledown
development strategies, leading to ‘ideas about
beneficiary involvement’ (Nelson and Wright, 1995: 3).
The key idea behind the concept of participation is thus
decentralisation, which was earlier entirely identified with
the core micro system of local governance, for example,
through the Panchayati Raj institutions in India.
In other words, community participation in the development
process can be realised through either a unitary or a federal
structure of State functionings. In the former, the State from
its central core extends itself and acts through community
groups or co-operatives, that is, the organised beneficiaries
at the local level. Against this top-down approach,
decentralisation of State power and functions marks the
latter. Here the local bodies are empowered to function
as local development institutions of self-government, and
constitute an autonomous and hence ideal means of targeting
and tackling development issues through co-operation and
collective action. 6 This in turn implies that the degree of
decentralisation of power of a State is an indicator of its
concern for and commitment to human development. 7 It
is in this second sense that participatory development is
recognised today, with a second phase added to it that
goes down to a still micro level of participation in self-help
groups and user groups. In what follows we discuss the
experience of Kerala in these ventures.
level, (the best forum for creating a mass base for grassroots
planning), the intermediate panchayat at the block level and
the district panchayat at the district level (73rd Amendment);
for the urban local bodies (74th Amendment) municipalities
were recognised as institutions of self–government and
corporations were mandated to constitute ward committees;
in smaller urban centres, town panchayats were constituted.
The 74th Amendment provided for the setting up of District
Planning Committees (DPCs) in each district of the State with
the aim of helping the district prepare a plan encompassing
both the rural and urban areas.
The panchayat/municipality/corporation was to have a tenure
of five years and by providing 33 per cent reservation for
women at all levels of local bodies and of decision-making,
decentralisation provided a large political space for women
in Kerala/India. The emphasis underlying the amendments
was on strengthening the democratically elected government
structures at local levels by assigning to them such powers
and authority as may be necessary to enable them to operate
as institutions of self-government. Hence within the new
framework, a much larger, more developmental role was
visualised for the local bodies contained in the two schedules,
XI and XII to the amendments which comprised a list of functions
considered ‘appropriate’ for devolution to local bodies. 10
However, the lists were more in the nature of suggestions; nor
did the schedules mention any resource raising arrangements
by the local bodies. Hence, the State legislatures continued to
retain the prerogative of deciding which functions to assign to
3. The Kerala Experience
3.1 The Constitutional Amendments: The Starter
As is by now well-known, direct local democracy in India
has been mandated constitutionally through the 73rd and
74th Amendments 8 which compartmentalised the rural and
urban areas. A three-tier system was recommended for rural
areas in States 9 with the grama panchayat at the village
6 The principle of ‘Cooperative Federalism’ (decentralised implementation based upon harmonious understanding between the
three tiers of governance-Central, State and Local) – is the basic premise of India’s 9th Plan (Mathur, 2000).
7 According to Arnstein, citizen participation involves “the redistribution of power that enables the have-not citizens, presently
excluded from the political and economic processes, to be deliberately included in the future; means by which they can
induce significant social reform which enables them to share in the benefits of the affluent society” (Arnstein, 1969: 216).
8 Details regarding these Amendments have been documented elsewhere (see for instance Mathur, 2000).
9 In Kerala, earlier attempts at decentralisation had recommended only a two-tier system focusing on the grama panchayat.
10 These included agriculture, rural electrification, poverty alleviation (29 items in schedule XI for rural areas), urban planning,
slum improvement, etc. (18 items in Schedule XII in respect of urban areas) which went beyond the traditional tasks of local
bodies in terms of delivery of basic services and locally necessary infrastructure.