Chapter 9: Footnote 2

Any reader interested in perusing the full speech is referred to the book’s website: http://www.amaverickinpolitics.com or by scanning the QR code at the end of chapter.

After thanking by name Shri Basudeb Acharia and others who had participated in the two day-long debate, which was standard courtesy for ministers to start their replies, I drew attention to the wholly unusual spectacle of all sections of the House having accorded so rousing a welcome to our three volume Mid-Term Review and Appraisal of the work done by the Ministry.

I then cited what the Prime Minister had said on the occasion of the release of the Report:

“…This Report is a measure of the successes we have achieved so far and the road we still have to travel…”

Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would like to sum-up my remarks under these two heads, that is, the successes we have achieved so far, and the road we still have to travel.

In so far as the successes are concerned, I believe, the single biggest success that we have accomplished in the 14 years that have lapsed since the House passed the 73rd Amendment is that we have institutionalized Panchayati Raj. There are institutions of Panchayati Raj in every eligible State of India, and in every Union Territory without exception. The one exception is Jharkhand where the matter is sub judice. The Supreme Court has decided that there should be an early hearing, and they have said that within less than six weeks they are going to take the final hearing. Once we have a judgement there, then we should, ‘inshah allah’, be having Panchayati Raj institutions in the near future in Jharkhand also. I hope that by the time I next address this House, I can say with pride that we have Panchayati Raj absolutely everywhere in the country.

It is not only the existence of Panchayati Raj which is a success. I believe that we can sum-up the success of institutionalization in three words. Firstly, we have made Panchayati Raj ineluctable. They cannot be avoided. You cannot bypass Panchayati Raj anywhere anymore, and you cannot but have Panchayati Raj. Secondly, we have made it irremovable. I find it impossible to believe that any Government, ever in the future, will be able to muster a 2/3rd majority in this House to substantively or significantly get Panchayati Raj removed from our system of governance. Thirdly, I think that we have made it irreversible, and we will never go back to those bad old days when there was no Panchayati Raj.

I do not know how fast we will go towards fully achieving the dreams of Mahatma Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, but we will not slip backwards in any significant institutional sense, and that is assured. Therefore, making Panchayati Raj ineluctable, irremovable, irreversible constitutes in itself a major institutional success. Moreover, we have ensured that there shall be regular elections.

I then contrasted this with the situation that had prevailed earlier:

Professor Ramadass drew our attention to the horror of a situation where for 38 years Puducherry had not had any election. I remember Shri Rajiv Gandhi referring to Bhagalpur not having any Corporation elections for 18 years.

We can be even more reassured by the Supreme Court judgment of October, 2006. I will only read one sentence. Referring to the State Election Commissions, they asserted that these State Election Commissions “shall complete election before the expiration of the duration of five-year period and not yield to situations that may be created by vested interests to postpone elections from being held within the stipulated time.” I really believe that this is a truly historic pronouncement of the highest court of the land, it certainly fulfills the objectives of the Constitution-makers, ourselves. We can be sure that there shall be regular elections held apart from a continued and permanent existence of our Panchayati Raj institutions.

I then referred to the State Election Commissions charged with the constitutional responsibility of organizing elections:

The State Election Commissioners have also banded themselves into a kind of trade union of State Election Commissioners. They formed a platform on which they get together from time to time. They share their experiences. They inform us of the conclusions they have come to. They have been to the Election Commissioner of India with the conclusions that they have arrived at. They participated in one of our Round Tables, and they have even got the Election Commission to send out instructions about at least two very important matters. One is that since the Indian voter is one and indivisible, there should be a common electoral roll for all elections – local body elections, State elections and Union elections. Secondly, they have secured the right to use EVMs (Electronic Voting Machines) in local bodies’ elections. There are some problems about the numbers of these machines and who will pay for them if they get stolen or lost. These are matters of administrative detail which will be dealt with as we go along. But we are moving towards setting up of proper infrastructure for free and fair election that cannot be easily rigged.

I turned then to the positive outcomes of the institutionalization of Panchayati Raj:

The consequence of this kind of institutionalization is that today in India we have close to two and a half lakh elected local body institutions in rural and urban India. Two and a half lakhs! The total number of village panchayats - I am giving this figure because often people want to know what it is exactly - as of today is 2,33,251. The number of intermediate panchayats - which are known by different names like blocks, mandals, union in Tamil Nadu, Panchayat Samitis, there are lots of different names for it – we have 6,105. The District Panchayats are 519. You will find the details of all this in Volume 1, pages 29 to 32.

In these elected institutions we have close to 32 lakh representatives in all local bodies and approximately 28.30 lakh representatives in our panchayats. Of these 28.30 lakh panchayat representatives, there are 12 lakh women in the local bodies as a whole and marginally over 10 lakh in our village panchayats.

This was described most appropriately, I thought, by our friend, the hon. Member, Shri Bhrutahari Mahtab, as “momentous”. I cannot think of a more apt word to describe the situation where in this House there is a shameful situation of something like eight per cent of the Membership being women and out there, among the most illiterate people of India, among the most poor people of India and among the most oppressed people of India, willing acceptance of something like 10 lakh elected women in our village panchayats.

I am even prouder to say that as against 33 per cent quota provided for in Part IX of the Constitution, the national average in India as of today is 37 per cent as against 33. In other words, four per cent more women have been elected to our Panchayati Raj institutions than prescribed… in terms of the Constitutional reservations. Actually, the figure was till recently 41 per cent…I used to be repeatedly asked to explain… where in India are you going to find so many women? But the fact today is, there are more women contesting and winning than they are entitled to purely by reservations. But even more impressive than this is if you go down to the State level. In Bihar, the reservations have been raised to 50 per cent and the number of women elected in Bihar (Intervention in Hindi) is 55 per cent. They have done even better than the national average. In Karnataka, where the percentage of women in the Panchayat is 43 per cent compared to 33 per cent reservation, the basic reason for this outstanding performance is that, among the Scheduled Tribes reserved seats where one-third of the Schedule Tribe representatives are supposed to be women, 65 per cent of the Scheduled Tribe representatives are women. It is double the quota nearly. Among the Scheduled Caste women, the percentage of representation in reserved Scheduled Caste seats is 46 per cent as against 33 per cent reservation. So, we have an extraordinary phenomenon that women are represented significantly higher than their reserved quota because Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe women, who in our conventional wisdom are the most oppressed of those oppressed segments, are doing so outstandingly well in Panchayat elections.

No wonder that the Prime Minister on the eve of the release of this report made the following statement, which I think, ought to be written in letters of gold so as to remind ourselves that this House is still to achieve what the poor of India have already achieved. Please listen to this carefully. He has said:

“I think, it would be fair to say that there are now more women in India in positions of elected authority than in the rest of the world put together.”

That is the extent of our institutionalization and achievement. There are more women elected in our democracy than in the United States, the whole of the European Union, Australia, New Zealand and every democratic country in the world put together and you add it up and there are a fewer women elected in the whole world than in India… The Prime Minister added (that)… he hoped that this House would follow the example that has been set by our panchayats.

I then moved to the outcomes of institutionalization for the most historically disadvantaged sections of our population:

When you look at Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes representation as a whole, I am not talking about women alone, the total Scheduled Castes representation is 19 per cent and the total Scheduled Tribes representation is 12 per cent. So, together the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes constitute 31 per cent of our elected representatives, which is much-much higher than their share in the population.

Dr. Ambedkar is often quoted as having had his serious reservations about Panchayati Raj because he felt that our villages are cesspools of social oppressions. But by this device which Prime Minister, Shri Rajiv Gandhi devised of bringing in reservations not only for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes but more importantly quota within the quota of Scheduled Caste women within the Scheduled Caste quota and Scheduled Tribe women within the Scheduled Tribe quota, we have achieved the remarkable result of nearly a third of the elected Members in the Panchayats being from the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes…

I next took up the question of the representativeness of our democracy:

Prime Minister Shri Rajiv Gandhi often used to say that we may be the world’s largest democracy but we are also the world’s least representative democracy. It is a fact that in the United Kingdom where the size of the electorate is about one-fifth of the size of the Indian electorate, they have 630 Members in the House of Commons and we, here, have 100 less with the population that exceeds 100 crore. Now, I think we can say because the number of elected representatives has been raised from about 5000 in Parliament and the State Assemblies to well over 30 lakh in the country as a whole, India is not only the world’s largest democracy but also that it is the world’s most representative democracy. This, Sir, is an achievement without parallel in the world and without precedent in history. I think this House should be very-very proud of this remarkable achievement and which is why I regard the Panchayati Raj in India as the greatest experiment in democracy ever, in history or anywhere in the world.

I then turned to the vexed question of the Constitutional position of the ministry of Panchayati Raj:

Shri A.V. Bellarmin drew the attention of the House to the fact that the Panchayat Raj seems to vary so much from one State to another. Prof. Ramadoss, regretting that Panchayat Raj across the country is not on an even keel, demanded that Panchayat Raj be brought to the Concurrent List and Shri Raghunath Jha said that let there be a model law. Now I can see immediately from the reaction of our Left Front friends that they would never allow the transfer of Panchayat Raj from the State List to the Concurrent List. In fact, this was very seriously discussed when Prime Minister, late Rajiv Gandhi was preparing the constitution amendments and he said that if we try to shift the position of Panchayat Raj out of the State List, this whole discussion will de-generate into one on Centre-State relations and we will forget the third tier of governance… So, let us leave Panchayati Raj in the State List and instead try to see how we can create a Constitutional framework for Panchayati Raj and leave it to the good sense of the States to bring this into implementation.

Therefore, when I became the Minister, I was faced with this Constitutional conundrum that my main duty was to ensure respect for letter and the spirit of the Constitution. But that very same Constitution said that I should have nothing to do with Panchayat Raj. This is a State subject. So, how was I to proceed forward? I could not follow the Raghunath Jha model. I could not follow the Ramadoss model and so I decided to follow the Mani Shankar Aiyar model! What I suggested was that all the Panchayati Raj Ministers of India could get together and discuss how to move forward, and because I was associated from the sidelines or from outside with what had been happening over the previous 12 years, I knew that the Panchayat Raj is too complicated a subject to deal with in one or two days at a meeting in Vigyan Bhawan. So, I made an appeal to my colleagues, who immediately accepted the appeal, that within a space of 150 days between July 2004 and December, 2004, we should meet seven times in seven different parts of India and discuss the 18 identified dimensions of Panchayat Raj to arrive at some conclusion… In consequence to this intensive interaction, we succeeded in producing a compendium with respect to 18 dimensions of Panchayati Raj which extends to approximately 150 agreed steps to be taken.

Having prepared this document, which was unanimously accepted by everybody, I sent the compendium to every Chief Minister of India and no Chief Minister raised any objection. I do not know whether it was because they did not read it, or whether because they agreed with it. Either way, there was acquiescence or agreement and since there was no objection to a single line, I decided by April 2005, that now that we have a national road map, and the Constitution says that the responsibility for Panchayati Raj is that of the States, the States themselves have sat with me and agreed that this is the national road map. We are now engaged in talking to the States to fulfill, not my programme but their programme, because after all this document has been accepted by the States themselves. We, now, have a national road map. I am reinforcing it by going to every State of the Indian Union and every Union Territory, where Part IX applies, and after visiting the Panchayats in that State to sit with the Chief Minister and sign a document with him or her which sets out the State level road map to reinforce the national road map.

Moving then to the question of fiscal resources to get Panchayati raj dynamically under way, I pointed out:

In India, the problem is no more one of lack of resources. There was a time when there was a severe financial constraint. Now the hon. Finance Minister and the hon. Prime Minister have again and again said that there is money available and we can do the job. What is not available as yet is the instrument of governance that will ensure devolution. The instrument of governance which late Prime Minister thought of, merely taking his inspiration from Mahatma Gandhi and Pandit Nehru, was Panchayati Raj.

This led me to the question of how, as mandated in Article 243G, devolution to PRIs could be used effectively:

… to my mind, (in) using the instrument of Panchayati Raj, we have (to place) four specific priorities before the country.

The first is the devolution of functions through activity mapping…. Unless and until every single tier of the Panchayati Raj system knows what is expected of it, there will be confusion and there is confusion in most States, because it is stated that such and such a subject has been devolved, but nobody says which are the activities to be undertaken by the village panchayat, which are the activities to be undertaken by the intermediate panchayat and which are the activities to be undertaken by the district panchayat. So, all the members of all the three tiers try to do the same work and compete with each other and cause confusion. The foundation stone of successful Panchayati Raj is the preparation of activity maps on the principle of subsidiarity which set out clearly and unambiguously what work is to be done at which level of the Panchayati Raj system.

Once such an activity map is ready, and only if it is ready, can you have the second priority, that is the devolution of finances, patterened on the same activity map. It is because you cannot have a disjunct between the work to be done at the village level and the money that exists at the village level. It all has to be meshed in together. The same activity map to indicate the activities and the same activity map to indicate the finances.

The third follows. By matching the devolution of functions and finances, you have the devolution of functionaries. So, the activity map is the beginning not only of the devolution of functions but also of the devolution of finances, and, therefore, the devolution of functionaries.

The fourth priority is district level planning in conformity with relevant constitutional provisions in Parts IX and IXA (of the Constitution), namely, Articles 243G and 243ZD, read with the Eleventh and Twelfth Schedules. All these Constitutional provisions have been spelt out in Volume III at pages 1 to 9 and I commend them to the attention of the House.

Having outlined broadly the main four priorities, I next took up a more detailed exposition of each:

I will take up each one of these four priorities in some detail. With regard to Activity Maps, where Shri Prabodh Panda called for time-bound devolution, Shrimati Sujata for clear-cut devolution of functions and finances and Thirumati Bhavani Rajenthiran for more power and more finances, the Prime Minister has said:

“The key to the effective devolution of the functions is the Activity Map”.

So, we have to get the Activity Map ready. In all the States I have been to, they all promised me that they will do the Activity Map. Many of them have given the date by which that Activity Map is supposed to be ready. In most States, the technical work is ready, but the Cabinet is yet to pass it or the Government is still to notify it. That is where all my hon. friends come into the picture. If they could just lean upon their respective State Governments, I am sure we can get this fundamental work of Activity Mapping completed.

The obligation is not only at the State level. The Prime Minister also said in the same speech:

“Equally the Ministries at the Centre also need to prepare activity maps so that their schemes ensure centrality of panchayats in our system of governance.”

So, I dwelt at some length on what we were attempting to do at the Centre:

Now, the hon. Prime Minister wants to do the same work here in Delhi as we are asking the States to do in their respective States. As an earnest of this, there is a circular which has been issued through the Cabinet Secretary to all relevant Ministries asking them to coordinate with mine on working out Activity Maps for their Centrally Sponsored Schemes. Then, the Minister of Finance in his Budget Speech for 2005-06 announced `the centrality’ of the panchayats in the Bharat Nirman Scheme. In the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, it is specifically provided for that the Panchayati Raj Institutions shall be `the principal authorities for planning and implementation’. In the process of following these instructions, we have succeeded in recasting the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and the total literacy campaign in concert with the hon. Minister of Human Resource Development, Shri Arjun Singh. We have also worked in a similar way on the National Mid-Day Meal Scheme. We have done it in respect of the Rajiv Gandhi Drinking Water Mission. We have done it with respect to the Total Sanitation programme. We have done it in the National e-governance policy. We have done it in the Horticulture Mission. The list would become too long if I were to read all of it out, but, in practical terms, we are moving at the Central level.

In new Schemes like the Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana and the Rural Electrification Policy, again the panchayats have been brought in as key institutions empowered, if the State Government so wishes and if the panchayats themselves pick up this initiative, to perform a major role. We are working on the ICDS with the hon. Minister, Shrimati Renuka Chowdhary. We are working with the hon. Minister, Shrimati Meira Kumar on social empowerment. So, all along the line, the Union Government is moving forward. We, in the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, would like to move forward much faster. But it is understandable that there are problems in changing systems that already exists. But, altogether, I think, there is a measure of success.

I then took up the key question of “district planning” with the foundational role of the panchayats at all three levels through the District Planning Committees:

The House would also be happy to know that the Planning Commission is undertaking a major exercise in the context of the Eleventh Plan to rationalize our Centrally Sponsored Schemes. At the moment, we have nearly 300 Centrally Sponsored Schemes, a huge majority of which are either unfunded or under-funded or do not really serve their purposes. So, in this context, we are rationalizing it and in the process of rationalizing, I think, we will also be able to clarify the role of the Panchayati Raj Institutions and that should enable us to move forward.

This led me to deal with CSS and PRIs in some detail:

I also need to say that both Shrimati Sujatha and Prof. M. Ramadoss expressed some concerns about how it was necessary to recast Additional Central Assistance and CSS to strengthen Panchayati Raj Institutions. We are actually doing so, and we would like to move further forward.… (Interruptions)

Sir, I now come to the devolution of finances to the panchayats. Shri Jaiprakash of Hissar drew attention to the shortage of funds for Panchayats, so did Shri Ram Kripal Yadav and Thiru Karventhan avargal. Shri L. Rajagopal said that every department should have a share for the Panchayats. Shri Francis George called for funds to be allotted without political bias. Kunwar Manvendra Singh ji sought objective criteria that take into account both population and area in determining allocations. Shri Shailendra Kumarji asked for specific allocations for all subjects mentioned in the Eleventh Schedule and the direct transfer of funds to Panchayats, so did Shri Mitrasen Yadav. Shri Dahyabhai Patel pointed to the financial plight of Panchayati Raj institutions in the Union Territories.

The Prime Minister of India, emphasizing the importance of finances said the following which, I think, we need to carry to every single State Government. He said:

“That to secure effective devolution of finances, budgets of all line departments must open a Panchayat sector window through which Panchayats have the necessary financial resources to undertake the duties entrusted to them and the best Panchayati Raj States have already opened such windows. I hope others will follow.”

Sir, it is very essential that the devolution of finances be patterned on the activity maps for functions. So, if you have decided that a particular activity is to be undertaken by a Panchayat, then the money cannot remain with the line department. From the line department’s budget, the money must reach the Panchayat at the appropriate level… Since so many of you are interested in the financial strengthening of the Panchayati Raj Institutions, I would request you to kindly look through the relevant section for your particular State and then you can take it up with your respective State Governments.

I then turned to miscellaneous suggestions made by Members:

Sir, there were two or three points that were specific. One was made by Shri Francis George who wanted to know as to why the 12th Finance Commission’s shares (for PRIs) are not reaching all the States and, through the States, the Panchayats. The 12th Finance Commission have set aside Rs. 20,000 crore for a five-year period, virtually untied and earmarked only for the Panchayats and they are to be released by the Finance Ministry. But there are some States that have allowed a whole year to pass without even applying for their shares and many other States have taken the first installment, but not yet collected the second installment because the problem is that if they start collecting the second installment, then they have to provide Utilization Certificates that say that the money they have collected has actually gone to the Panchayats and the Panchayats have decided how they are going to be spent. The reason, therefore, that the 12th Finance Commission’s grants are still pending in Delhi is that either States have not adequately applied to get their installments or are unable to fulfill the basic conditionality of the 12th Finance Commission grants that the money should reach the Panchayats and the Panchayats should decide how they should be spent…

Sir, in our National Common Minimum Programme, it is a commitment that funds meant for the Panchayats should reach Panchayats without delay or diversification.

To do this, our Ministry of Panchayati Raj set up a Task Force, which has prepared a highly technical report on the electronic tagging and tracking of funds. So, when we send money from Delhi, whether it is through banking channels or through treasury channels, by pressing a button on a computer here, we should be able to tell whether any particular sum of money which has been sent to the State has moved from the State to the Panchayat; if so, to which level of the Panchayat and whether it has been utilized or is still pending. You will find the Expert Committee Report on Volume III, pages 286 to 292.

I would urge that if we are able to persuade our State Governments and Central Ministries to accept electronic tagging and tracking, then the kind of problem, which particularly Shri Kiren Rijiju has raised, might perhaps be solved.

We are working with the State Governments on this. We are working with the Central Ministries on this. But until everybody joins hands with us, I am afraid our technical solution will remain somewhat on paper.

Having dealt in detail with the devolution of finances, I turned to the devolution of functionaries:

As regards the devolution of functionaries, I think it should be accepted by everyone concerned that where the function is to be performed and the finances have been devolved, there the functionary must be posted. We cannot have a situation continuing where a work is to be done by the panchayat and the officer is sitting in the line department…as Shri Suresh Prabhu told us, the only way of meeting quality standards is to get our panchayats an adequate complementary staff.

I then moved to another aspect of Panchayati Raj, training and capacity building, that appeared to be of general interest:

Shrimati Bhavani Rajenthiran referred to the need for training of not only elected representatives but also of the officials, and so did Shri Prabodh Panda. Shrimati Sujatha laid very important stress on capacity building, and in this context referred to the Kerala Institute of Local Administration which has carved out a very special place for itself in the nation’s training programmes for local administration….

Dr. Meinya of Manipur made a very important point that there is an exploitation of inexperienced women members by male members of their family. He could perhaps have also added that lower orders of the bureaucracy also tend to make victims of these innocent ladies.

I would like to draw your attention to Volume III, Pages 360 to 369 in which we have set out the Expert Committee Report on the capability building framework and training. That will partly answer Shri Tapir Gao’s point that we need a national training institute. So far, all the training has been undertaken in the National Institute of Rural Development and the State Institutes of Rural Development. I do not think we should give them up; they are very, very valuable institutions. But we need to put the training of Panchayati Raj representatives, whether in Rural Development Institutes or separate institutes within a larger framework. This Expert Committee’s report addressed itself to these issues, and I sent it to a very old friend of mine who is a Pakistani, who is now heading for Asia and the Pacific, the UNDP, Dr. Hafeez Pasha. I met him about a month ago in New York. He said that he had never ever read a more thorough report on how to do the training and capacity building of our Panchayati Raj representatives. Therefore, I am hoping that we will get considerable UNDP financial support provided, of course, the Government of India itself is happy with this scheme and asks for the money. If we get that done, it will be part and parcel of what we call the Gram Swaraj Programme.

Under the Gram Swaraj Programme, we are concentrating on three major issues. One is panchayat ghars. Somebody from Kerala will be astonished that this is a problem. Somebody from Sikkim will be even more astonished because in Sikkim they are setting aside Rs. 16 lakh for every single gram panchayat ghar. Yet, there are States of India, much bigger States, much richer States, States with much older Panchayati Raj, who have not even a panchayat ghar. Sir, the first requirement is the physical space in which the Panchayats can undertake their activities. The second is adequate complement of staff.

I turned to “district planning”, a subject to which, in keeping with Rajiv Gandhi’s emphasis, I attached particular importance:

I now come to district planning which is the fourth priority. Now, one cannot help but agree with Prof. Ramadass that participatory planning is the only way of ending what he called “the legacy of poverty”.

…There are very detailed provisions in the Constitution in Article 243G and in Article 243ZD. Article 243ZD explains how a District Planning Committee is to be constituted. It also says that the District Planning Committee will not prepare the district plan but “consolidate” the district plan. Consolidation requires that there should be a village plan, an intermediate Panchayat plan, a district plan and a municipal plan by the Nagarpalikas and the town Panchayats. They will all be consolidated at the level of the District Planning Committee and the District Planning Committee cannot and must not be headed by a Minister of the State Government. You cannot have a parallel body where there is a District Planning Committee or something and a Minister from somewhere arrives and runs the show. If you want district planning, it has to be done by the local people… The Constitution has prescribed how the DPC is to be constituted, how it is supposed to do its work and its work begins by consolidating the Plans made by others. Having consolidated it, the Constitution says that it shall only be a “draft” District plan (for submission to the state government)…

We have to rely on the people and planning should be a response to their perceived priorities and their perceived requirements. In that sense, I am afraid, Shrimati Sujatha as also Shri Prabodh Panda were a bit worried about how this Planning Commission which for ten Plans has been planning from above, will suddenly now agree to plan from below. But I am very happy to inform them that in fact, there is no need for concern. The Planning Commission under the Deputy Chairmanship of my friend, my college friend Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia and the hon. Prime Minister who is also the Chairman, have given such a big push to grassroots planning that I would draw your attention at Volume 3, pages 527 to 701 and particularly to pages 614 to 638 where we have reproduced the circulars of the Planning Commission, the letters written by the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, the supporting letters which I, as a Minister, have sent and the detailed expert committee report on grassroots planning. We have put it all together and we have given this information to you.

So, please do not worry. The Planning Commission is entirely behind us. But, I am afraid, the State Governments are not thus far behind us. We need to push them, and I hope that, over the course of the next few months, we will be able to get State Governments’ support to get proper district planning done and to make district plans the building blocks of the national plan.

I then got my teeth into the importance of “incentivization” to induce States to move on “effective devolution” and PRIs to be more “transparent and accountable” in their transactions:

Sir, we also need to incentivize. We need to incentivize the lagging States to empower the Panchayats and we need to incentivize the Panchayats to become accountable to the Gram Sabha. So, we have thought up a scheme called the Panchayat Empowerment and Accountability Incentive Scheme. We want to incentivize empowerment to the Panchayats by the States and incentivize accountability to the Gram Sabhas on the part of Panchayats.

To do this, we have asked the National Council for Applied Economic Research to prepare for us a Devolution Index, completely objective and completely scientific. They have already given me an interim report; their final report is expected by the end of December and we will circulate this to the State Governments… I have approached the World Bank to get us a substantial amount of money to be able to genuinely incentivize the States to empower the panchayats.

I then took up the issue of “best practices”:

At the same time, we need to inform each other about what is the best practice. Shrimati C.S. Sujatha suggested that we should be distributing information about best practices. I want to draw her attention to Chapter 7 of Volume I pages 99 to 107 as also to the State Profiles in section 1 of Volume II, that is, pages 1 to 372 where they have set out a large number of best practices followed in different States of the Indian Union. I am hoping that by doing this, we will be able to get the laggard States to move forward and to prevent the States that have done well from slipping backwards.

From here, I went on to the physical infrastructure to make Panchayati Raj work in areas where at present panchayat offices functioned from ‘chaupals’ or dilapidated one-room holes, built decades ago and now at an advanced state of decay:

Sir, I also mentioned to you the Gram Swaraj Programme. I mentioned the panchayat ghars, which was raised by Shri Jai Prakash of Haryana, by Shri Tapir Gao and Shri Rijiju of Arunachal Pradesh. Several other States have concerns in this regard. I mentioned the question of staff also.

Now, I want to come to the question of connectivity that is stressed by Kunwar Manvendra Singh in particular. Connectivity is not, these days, only road connectivity or rail connectivity. Cyber space has become the space where each of us can encounter each other. There is a remarkable work that has been done at Mysore in Karnataka where they have a studio. You can get the best teacher, the Minister or the Secretary of the Department to come in and when he or she speaks, it simultaneously reaches all the blocks and all the panchayat members who can gather at the block headquarters. Any question anyone asks is heard by everybody else and any answer given is also heard by everybody else. It is an interactive form of connectivity. So, we have in mind, in terms of the national e-governance policy, connecting up through computers and cyber space. By use of satellite as well as by use of computers, we wish to provide connectivity to all the village panchayats of India, all the intermediate panchayats, all the district panchayats with the State Governments as well as with the Central Government.

Indeed, through video-conferencing, my own Ministry is today in a much better contact with State Panchayati Raj Secretaries than it has ever been before. So, I believe that with panchayati ghars, staff and connectivity, we will really be able to get infrastructure required to make for an effective panchayati raj. Hence, I would like to quote the Prime Minister who said:

“This Report highlights the lack of basic resources, facilities, connectivity and staff in many panchayats..... The Ministry of Panchayati Raj has prepared a Gram Swaraj Yojana which aims to supplement State efforts in this regard, .... but the primary responsibility remains that of the States and, I hope, they give high priority to ensuring this.”

I followed this with drawing the attention of the House to a key issue of national security, Naxalism, which I believed could best be tackled by implementing PESA in letter and spirit:

Sir, there are some States, nine in number, which have Fifth Schedule areas incorporated within the boundaries of the State. For these, the Constitution has obliged this Parliament to enact an Act called The Provisions of the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, which was enacted in 1996.

I am deeply convinced that it is only by implementing this Act that we will be able to roll back the wave of Naxalism that is now sweeping down from Nepal through so much of Central India and licking at the corners of even Southern India; extending towards Western India; and engulfing parts of North. This is apart from the problems that we have in the North East. Therefore, we have to (or have taken) to ensure that in Fifth Schedule areas (steps are taken) to empower the people there -- through their Panchayats -- to build their own destiny...

PESA is the only Panchayati Raj Act in the country that provides for three things to be done by a Gram Sabha mandatorily with the help of the law. One is the identification of beneficiaries. Second is approval of all plans, programmes, or projects prepared by the Panchayat. The third and the most important of all is that only the Gram Sabha, under PESA, can authorize the issue of a utilization certificate…

Hence, it would be fair to say that the best Panchayati Raj Act anywhere in the country is the Act, which our House had the pride to pass 12 years ago. But is it being implemented in conformity with its provisions everywhere? I am afraid that the answer is not a very happy one. Therefore, I have to quote the Prime Minister once again on the question of PESA, and he said that:

“PESA is the single most important instrument in our armoury for dealing with the economic and emotional alienation of our tribal brethren, which lies at the root of the growing menace of Naxalism. Its effective implementation would, I believe, generate a deep sense of effective participation among our tribal people in the conduct of their own affairs…”

Only the Members of this House can ensure that the Act, which they have passed, is actually being implemented in the different States. I ask the Members from those nine States -- which are in the Fifth Schedule -- to ask themselves, and to ask their Chief Ministers whether this work is being done honestly or not. If it is being done honestly and sincerely, then I do not see any reason for Naxalism to spread. If you want Naxalism to be stopped and rolled back, then the only way is to give respect to PESA, and subsequently to the Forest Rights Bill of the Scheduled Tribes and other traditional forest dwellers, which is coming before the House shortly. Please, let us take this seriously. It is not by guns alone; it is not by police forces alone; and it is not by intelligence alone that we will be able to combat the internal menace of Naxalism. It is only by democracy.

Having dealt with the law-and-order solutions to be found to national security issues through Panchayat Raj, I turned to the question of Panchayats as the motor of economic development in rural India:

With regard to the Rural Business Hubs and the self-help groups, I draw the attention of the House to Volume I, pages 24 to 26, to Chapter 6 pages 89 to 90, and to the State Profiles in Volume II, as well as pages 861 to 869 of Volume III. These pages show how we are trying to fulfill Shri Suresh Prabhu’s demand that we mobilize local entrepreneurship.

When Shri Basudeb Acharia tell us about lac in Purulia or potteries, bell metal and bronze work in Bankura; when Shri Revati Raman Singh talks about the fisheries programme in Andhra Pradesh; when Shri Rajagopal tells us about jatropha (as a bio-fuel); when Shri Suresh Prabhu draws attention to how panchayats can be made the economical entities for electricity distribution; then my mind goes to the Prime Minister who, talking about the Rural Business Hubs said, and I quote him:

“It is not till the output of village enterprises goes beyond the village haat and reaches out to the hypermarket that we will see real signs of our prosperity”.

That is what the objective of the RBH Scheme is.

We have so far prepared, with the help of the States, 846 blocks in India and the product or the skill which we wish to leverage in those blocks. We have already entered into 55 memoranda of understanding between business houses and Panchayati Raj institutions. There is a vast potential. We have a Rural Business Hub National Council which is co-chaired by Shri Sunil Munjal of the Confederation of Indian Industry and myself, with Shri Jairam Ramesh among us as Vice-Chairmen, probably the first example in independent India of a Government Minister, a Cabinet Minister, agreeing to co-chair, not to be above a private sector representative, and for a Minister of State to agree to be the Vice-Chair to a private sector representative. It is a Constitutional innovation with immense, I think, implications for the future.

We have also got eight RBH Councils in the States. But I have to emphasize that I am very disappointed with the results we have obtained from the business community. They have not been as forthcoming as I would have hoped that they would be. Therefore, I again quote the Prime Minister,

“I urge the National Rural Business Hubs Council to mobilize our business community to make their contribution to bridging the widening rural-urban divide and ensuring inclusiveness of our growth processes.”

Turning next to Self-Help Groups, I explained:

Shri Revati Raman Singh drew attention to the Bangladesh example of self-help groups. I would urge him to go beyond Bangladesh. In Bangladesh, they undertook the revolution of bringing in micro finance that enables the sustenance of livelihood. We in India are moving from micro finance to micro enterprise which enable us to go beyond mere livelihood support to actually having a more comfortable economic life. But if we are to move from micro enterprises to genuine rural prosperity, we will have to use the Rural Business Hub route for going from the village haat to the hypermarket.

Please, let us not be scared of multinational corporations. Provided the production remains decentralized, the marketing and other forward linkages as well as subsequent backward linkages on the supply of raw materials can be looked after better by larger business houses, whether they are Indian or whether they are multinational.

I then sought to explain how social audit though the gram sabhas could control corruption in PRIs:

What we need to understand is how do we end corruption in the Panchayati Raj Institutions? To do this, we had a very, very serious discussion at the Sixth Round Table in Guwahati. If you look through the results of the Sixth Round Table, you will find for elections and making elections clean what are the steps that we should take. We decided those steps in consultation with the State Election Commissioners… Happily, we have a forum of State Election Commissioners. They are in touch with me. They are, in fact, in touch even with the Prime Minister. They are in touch with the Election Commission of India. They are giving us suggestions. If we follow them, we can have cleaner and less expensive, therefore, freer and fairer elections.

At the same time, I think we need to realize that the stress which Shri Kharabela Swain laid on proper Gram Sabhas is the key to solving the problem. If a Gram Sabha is a Contractor Sabha, then it would not work. But fortunately, the Gram Sabhas in many States are Gram Sabhas. They are not Contractor Sabhas. So, we need to see State by State how to empower the Gram Sabhas. Somebody asked me why not make fixed dates for Gram Sabha meetings. Well, nearly seven to eight years ago, the Ministry of Rural Development issued instructions that Gram Sabhas must be held on Republic Day, the 26th January; next then should be held on May Day, the 1st of May; third they should be held on Independence Day, the 15th August; and fourth they should be held on Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday, the 2nd October. If there are States where this is not being followed, the question has to be addressed to the State Minister and not to me.

We would like to see not only the Gram Sabhas but also the Ward Sabhas. In West Bengal, they call them Gram Sansads. In other places, they call them Ward Sabhas…Whatever may be the name, we need to get both the constituency of the Ward member as well as the whole of the village to be together from time to time to discuss issues and all the officials should be present when this happens. Strong Gram Sabhas, preferably empowered by the State Legislature with perhaps the rights that this Parliament has given under PESA to the tribal village Panchayats for approval of plans and projects and authorization of Utilization Certificates, will make a Gram Sabha useful. If a Gram Sabha is not going to be useful, why should people waste their time attending it? So, when people say that nobody attends the Gram Sabha, it is because you are not having useful Gram Sabha meetings. If you have useful Gram Sabha meetings, there will be a huge attendance… every Gram Sabha that I have attended – I have attended 75 of them in 17 different States of India – is overflowing with the local people. Maybe, because they think that a Union Minister has come, and we may make something out of it. But I do not think people of India are uninterested in Panchayati Raj. It is only that our State Legislatures and State Governments need to make Gram Sabhas meaningful.

Following the advice of Sushri Sujatha, I am willing to circulate to everybody the system by which they effectively run Gram Sabhas, say in Kerala, so that everybody can learn from that example and do better. Equally, I think what the hon. Member, Shri L. Rajagopal told us is very important that Panchayats… should be run by five or ten or fifteen people and not by one Sarpanch and not by one Adhyaksha. When it is run by one person, it is bound to be corrupt. You need the whole of the Panchayat to sit together to take decisions. You need subcommittees of the Panchayat which actually look at different subjects. If you have a directly elected Sarpanch, which many people have advised, who is not controlled by any of his Panches and who is to bother about standing in the elections only five years from now…then you are creating conditions for the most intense form of corruption. The Presidential system of America works on the basis of checks and balances from the Congress. So, unless you have a Congress in every village Panchayat, you cannot have directly elected people functioning effectively. You need the Gram Sabha as a people’s Parliament which checks the work of the Gram Panchayat and you need committees in each of the intermediate and district Panchayats to which the work and all decisions should be taken by the Panchayat as a whole, including the appointment of contractors and the payment of moneys for contracts.

So, the Prime Minister has said with regard to eliminating corruption that mechanisms for social audit and formal audit will go a long way towards mitigating the evil of corruption in Panchayats. Strong and empowered Gram Sabhas and Ward Sabhas which meet frequently and regularly to keep the elected executive authority under continuous check and watch can also guarantee clean Panchayati Raj. So, I do not despair.

There is need for independent evaluation. Both Shri A.V.Belarmin and Sushree Sujata made this suggestion. It is the fundamental goal of this Report that we have such an independent evaluation. (Preparing) the Devaluation Index through the NCAER is one method of independent evaluation.

As for an independent evaluation of the role of women in the actual functioning of PRIs, I reported:

I have made a request to Prof. Nirja Gopal Jayal of the Jawaharlal Nehru University to set up a study which will, of course, not entirely but satisfactorily, look through the 12 lakh women who are in our local bodies and find out how they are playing their role, see whether they are doing their job effectively and find out what are the problems that they face and suggest solutions… because now that we have got the women in, we really need to make them empowered and also we need to get the best out of them. It is true of all the Panchayati Raj representatives and so independent evaluation is a very useful suggestion.

Sir, with regard to KILA (Kerala Institute of Local Administration), I will look into the suggestion made by Sushree Sujatha that we make this an international institute. I have to first make it a national institute. Let me try and do that before we reach out to the world. It is a good suggestion and one that certainly bears emulation.

Turning then to States exempted from the application of Part IX of the Constitution, I remarked:

I have set up an Expert Committee under the Chairmanship of Shri V. Ramachandran, the former Vice Chairman of the Kerala State Planning Board to prepare a report, which I am hoping to get well before the end of this month, in which he will tell us how we can have an effective grassroots planning in those areas which are exempted. Sir, the exempted areas are, by and large, within the Sixth Schedule: the whole State of Mizoram; the whole State of Nagaland; the hilly areas of Manipur; large parts of Tripura and certain areas of the State of Assam… We have also excluded the Autonomous Hill Council area of Ladakh and indeed the whole of Jammu and Kashmir. In the Darjeeling Gorkha Hills Council, it applies only with modifications. In all these exempted areas, we will have to see how we are going to run the District planning system.

Puducherry is going to cause a particular problem because they do not have a District Panchayat. They have a village Panchayat and a commune Panchayat. So, we will have to work out some system that is applicable specifically to that State… The Constitution provides that if Bodoland, or if Tripura, or if Mizoram wishes to adopt the Panchayati Raj system, they are welcome to do so. I forgot to add that Meghalaya is also exempted under the Sixth Schedule.

Shri Meinya from Manipur asked me a question that since the population of Manipur now has exceed 21 lakhs, can they have a three-tier system? Well, they are going to have State Assembly Elections there shortly and so my request is that this question may be postponed until the State Assembly elections.

My next point of reply related to media publicity for Panchayati Raj:

Coming at the end, to Shri Prabodh Panda, I am grateful for his bringing up the point on media and publicity. I am afraid there is a huge silent revolution taking place there. It is the most important systemic change in India since the proclamation of the Constitution. There is nothing on this scale taking place anywhere, but you would not know it if you have read our newspapers or seen the television. What can I do to co-opt the media in this exercise? I hope they will listen to the Prime Minister who said that there is a silent revolution that is taking place in the countryside. It is silent only because the media and the urban political opinion are not giving adequate attention to it.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker, Sir, I have abused your time because this is a golden opportunity to try and get the message about the most important thing happening in India out to the knowledge of the people of India.

I then replied to a point that has never ceased bothering me:

I draw your attention to the figures given to us by Comrade Acharia demonstrating the huge divide which is there between the India which is proud of Ratan Tata taking over Corus and the reality in rural India, between the IT “flat world” and the very mountainous world in the valley of which the bulk of our people live. On every index, as indicated by Comrade Acharia, rural India is miles behind urban India and the rich of India are streets ahead of the poor of India. We are probably the country with the largest number of rich people in the world. About 300 million is equal to almost the population of North America or the European Union. But we also have got 700 million or 800 million people who may not live below the poverty line but are poor by any national standard, leave alone international standard. And they cannot take advantage of globalization without localization. We can have this globalization to sustain 8 to 9 per cent growth. But it will not reach down to our people unless localization gives them power over their own destiny.

That is why, the Prime Minister ended his speech by saying that Panchayati Raj is the harbinger of new home for the eradication of rural poverty and promotion of rural prosperity. He said that he has every confidence that Panchayati Raj will truly blossom within the next few years so that even as our economy gallops forward, rural India sees the blossoming of the dreams of Gram Swaraj that has inspired our leaders from Mahatma Gandhi to Shri Rajiv Gandhi.

That led to my concluding peroration:

So, perhaps the last word in this debate should not be in my mouth but in the mouths of Mahatma Gandhi and Shri Rajiv Gandhi. Shri Rajiv Gandhi, when he ended his presentation of 64th Amendment to this House on the 15th May, 1989 said, “To the people of India, let us ensure maximum democracy and maximum devolution. Let there be an end to power brokers. Let us give power to the people.” Mahatma Gandhi said, “The greater the power to the panchayats, the better for the people.”