Kerala 2005 - of Planning Commission

CHAPTER 9
DECENTRALISED GOVERNANCE AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
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Thrissur district), people’s planning would not have been
able to do the considerable amount of preparatory work it
has done, as for example, in mobilising people, conducting
seminars and camps, working as resource persons, drawing
up projects and development reports, organising training
programmes and the publication of a large number of
books, manuals and guidelines.
But this invited considerable criticism on the ground that
it resulted in a politicisation of the PRIs, reflected in the
selection of experts and nature of mass organisations
inducted into the campaign as also in muting the
development of in-house capacity of PRIs and the difficulty
of sustaining such an arrangement. Despite the substantial
number of training programmes undertaken, however,
what remained lacking, as brought out by some micro
studies was a strengthening of capability for effective
utilisation of resources. The expert committees have been
recently abolished.
3.3 Decentralised Governance
and Human Development
Whether decentralisation in Kerala, a sincere attempt at
“bringing government closer to the people” and eliciting
their participation, has resulted in enhancing well-being
of the disadvantaged groups is a question, the answer to
which is mixed- problems and successes abound (see Box
9.4 and Box 9.5). Its effectiveness can be gauged in terms
of physical achievements or through beneficiary assessment
of public expenditures and tracking improvements thereof
in individual/collective well-being. In terms of physical
achievements, spelt out in the official sources, the
performance is impressive in the areas of agriculture related
activities, self-employment generation, and in providing
minimum needs infrastructure like housing, water supply,
sanitation and connectivity. The local bodies are also
credited with reasonably good performance in natural
resource management, particularly in utilisation of water
resources for productive purposes. However, there have
only been a few isolated success stories in the productive
sectors, where agricultural production and productivity
have increased significantly. Similarly, one does not hear
of many innovative schemes for skill development of
the large numbers of educated unemployed with 10 or
12 years of general schooling, who constitute the hard core
of the educated unemployed; perhaps this is a function to be
performed at a higher tier of local governance. The outreach
of health services as well as remedial coaching for laggard
students has definitely improved and the infrastructure for
health and education has been upgraded.
With respect to the functioning of the financial and
accounting systems of panchayats under the campaign,
where more effective action should have been taken by
the state government to support the local governments in
enhancing their capabilities, the situation was unsatisfactory.
While the amended Panchayat Act (1999) exhorted
local bodies to present integrated budgets including plan
grant-in-aid, state and centrally sponsored schemes, own
revenues, institutional finance and voluntary/beneficiary
contribution, very little of this was found in practice.
A substantial number of panchayats have still to complete
their accounts for the Ninth Plan period.
Two important questions here are regarding a perceived
transformation in the quality of service delivery, since
quantity as we know has been less of a problem in Kerala;
and second, to what extent has it resulted in greater
horizontal equality. There has been a general view that
quality of such services as education and health has not
undergone any significant change, nor have disadvantaged
groups like STs derived much benefits in public service
delivery (Vijayanand, 2001; Eapen and Thomas, 2005).
However, a recent study spread over a fairly large number
of panchayats (72 in number) yields different results
(Chaudhuri et al 2004). Based on responses from ‘key
respondents’ in each panchayat (selected to capture a
range of opinions across the socio-economic and political
spectrum of Kerala society), the study highlights that the
evaluation of change, before and after the campaign was
positive, having moved from a predominantly ‘below
average’ service delivery before to ‘average’ after the
campaign. The range of services included primary
health care, child care, primary education, drinking