Panchayat raj in for a bad time
The new JDS/BJP government does not well for the Panchayatraj system in vogue in Karnataka. At a time, when the newly elected members of the taluk and zilla panchayats are poised to open a new era of local self government thanks to the empowerment made already, the regime in Karnataka appears to be conceptually alien to the entire concept.
This was evident from the initial observations made by the Chief Minister Mr. Kumaraswamy and the Deputy Chief Minister, Mr. B S Yediyurappa in a TV programme anchored by the Media Academy Chairman Mr. Subbarao on Doordarshan on February 7.
From the observations made, it was evident that both the Chief Minister and the Deputy Chief Minister were in the dark as for as the whole philosophy of the panchayat raj system, which is in vogue in Karnataka since more than two decades. They confined themselves to make some casual remarks mouthing the usual objections raised by the detractors of the system that the system had resulted in the decentralization of corruption, as if the corruption is a monopoly of the legislators and that the members of the local self government should keep themselves off.
This is nothing surprising. Because this has been attitude of the most of the legislators in Karnataka in the two decade old history of the movement. They have always viewed the system as something of an interloper, which has come to take away the powers and privileges enjoyed by the legislators. Comparatively the Congress had a better understanding, in the sense that the present panchayat raj enactment is a Congress creation and that it is the Congress, which has gone for bringing far reaching amendments to make the system more effective. This has been incidentally done by the Congress regime, mainly because of the commitment to the concept at the national party level than because of any new found love for the system by the run of the mill party legislators. Next to that comes the undivided Janata Dal, which was the author of the first enactment made in 1983 and subsequently introduced number of amendments. BJP has the poorest of the poor concept of the panchayat raj both at the state and the national level.
It was against this background that one noticed during the recently conducted zilla and taluk panchayat elections that the political parties studiously avoided making any references to the problems and programmes of the panchayat raj and ran the campaign as the one aimed at gaining power than the one designed to govern the panchayat raj institutions. Both the Congress and JDS chose to skirt the issue completely while the BJP made some exception by talking about the need for reforms in the system in its manifesto.
Now the JDS faction led by Kumaraswamy which has been catapulted to power, has hardly any idea of the system, the problems which are to be tackled and hurdles which require to be cleared. So has been the case with the BJP.
The unfamiliarity and the ignorance assumes importance in the context of the fact that the previous government had transferred lot of powers and finances to the panchayat raj institutions and the budget presented by Siddaramaiah, had created the panchayat head for the first time and transferred schemes and funds to the tune of Rest. 2880 crores to the panchayat sector. An activity mapping has been issued to delineate the functions of the each of the three tier system and avoid the overlapping of functions and confusion. Accordingly, more than Rs,. 100 crores have been kept at the disposal of the panchayat raj institutions in each of the district for the current year. And the performanance of the panchayat raj institutions is going to be dismal in the very first year, because of the delay in holding polls in the first instance, and because of the change in the government. No zilla and taluk panchayats have started effectively working as yet because of the delay in the election of the adhyakshas and upadhyakshas. And the financial year is coming to an end in about seven weeks time from now.
(ends) 23:38 hrs. February 7, 2006
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