Kerala 2005 - of Planning Commission

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innovative projects, at least under the WCP. The Tenth
Plan guidelines allow for each panchayat to take up
detailed studies on women’s status under the WCP
which is a welcome step; however this task has not
been taken up in many GPs.
In sum, more attention needs to be paid to gender
relations as mediators of development processes.
Needless to state this is a very difficult area for programme
intervention as it implies penetrating the household to
tackle gender power relations. However, more practical
and immediate policy responses lie in investing in
advancing members’ perceptions of social issues; the
greater capacity building and training of resource
persons from a gender perspective, within a gender
analysis framework, including the ways in which social
structures/institutions subordinate women; protecting
women’s rights of ownership over property and assets;
improving their productivity and access to markets and
enhancing their managerial skills and control.
3.3.2 The Prospects
Democratic decentralisation being a mature stage of
participatory development, which in its comprehensive
sense is the dynamic chain of progressive realisation
of human rights, it goes without saying that the Kerala
variant marked a first step towards it. It should be stressed
that for the first time, village panchayats were granted
greater freedom in matters relating to the design and
implementation of construction works. So too in the case
of minor irrigation and small drinking water projects.
The panchayats are now responsible for managing a
number of local level institutions such as schools and
primary health centres, agricultural and animal husbandry
extension centres, etc. Housing for the poor and drinking
water projects are also being implemented in a manner
that reflect the local conditions and requirements.
However, as pointed out frequently, control over the
devolved institutions is still incomplete, especially in
matters relating to staff. While allotment of staff to the
transferred institutions has occurred to a considerable
extent, postings and appointments continue to be with the
parent department.
As mentioned earlier, assessments of efficacy of
decentralised governance in general and of muting
horizontal inequalities in particular, are mixed though
it is definitely recognised that local governments have
gained significant stature in terms of autonomy and
authority to plan, finance and implement a wide range
of well-being enhancing programmes and policies in a
more inclusive framework. Local governments now have
funds, functions and functionaries that they did not have
before. However, equally important is the need to guard
against its limitations, (see Box 9.6) and strengthen its
functioning through greater responsiveness and need for
accountability.
4. Institutionalisation of Decentralisation:
From Campaign to Project
A major achievement, it must be recognised, is that the
agenda of decentralisation has been mainstreamed in
Kerala’s development discourse. The present government
that lost power after enacting the Kerala Panchayat and
Municipalities Acts and came back to power in 2001
has also declared its commitment to the decentralisation
process. However, it has replaced the ‘campaign’ mode
with a ‘project’ mode, re-christening the ‘People’s Plan
Campaign’ as ‘Kerala Development Programme’, aiming
to take decentralisation from the campaign mode to a
phase of institutionalisation to make it sustainable. The
emphasis now is on redeployment of the State government
staff to the local bodies, training of both the officials
and the elected representatives and introduction of
accountability in financial transactions. At the same time,
the new approach has not led to the kind of mobilisation
of people at the grassroots level that was so characteristic
of the ‘campaign’ mode.
The local governments are now expected to switch over
from incremental annual planning to five-year planning
during the Tenth Five Year Plan period (2002-07).
During this new phase, they are to graduate from the
phase of creation of infrastructure to that of promotion
of local economic development. Rs. 8,000 crore was
earmarked for local governments for the Tenth Plan
with an Annual Plan outlay of Rs.1,250 crore, exactly
one-third of the Plan size for preparing their own plans
from below. Some major initiatives have already been
launched for achieving the aim of institutionalisation of
decentralisation in terms of i) a local self-government
action plan, ii) a modernising government programme
(MGP), iii) a decentralisation support programme and iv)
a project for capacity development for decentralisation.
The most important of these is, of course, the programme
for modernising governance. It should be noted that
33 out of the 100 initiatives of the MGP relate to local
governments with a package of initiatives, meant to
strengthen the local governments so as to sustain the gains
of decentralisation.