Losing relevance of Panchayati Raj Ministry

After facing a massive budget cut coupled with the closure of its two key programmes, Ministry of Panchayati Raj is said to have lost relevance and if some rumours are to be believed, the ministry would soon be closed down or will be turned into a department under the Ministry of Rural Development.

Key Facts

• The Panchayati Raj Ministry was created in 2004 by UPA government to give shape to Rajiv Gandhi’s idea of empowering gram sabhas. Also, the 73rd amendment act has mandated three tier structure with panchayats at village level, block level and district level.
• The ministry has the mandate to look into all matters relating to the Panchayati Raj and Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs). The ministry is headed by a cabinet rank minister.
• The three major functions of the Panchayati Raj ministry are:
  • Monitoring the implementation of 73rd amendment act.
  • Enabling Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) to secure economic development and social justice in their respective areas.
  • Providing funds for research studies, workshops and seminars for development of Panchayats.
• The ministry was allotted a paltry Rs 94 crore in 2015-16 from the earlier allocations to the tune of Rs 7000 crore.
• The two flagship schemes of the ministry namely, the Backward regions Grants Funds (BRGF) and the Rajiv Gandhi Panchayat SashaktikaranAbhiyan (RGPSA) have been transferred to the states. BRGF scheme is aimed at addressing the regional imbalances in development, and the RGSPA scheme strengthens Panchayati Raj institutions by providing training and funds for the e-governance initiatives.

The ministry is concerned over the progress of the restructured BRGF initiative and the half finished e-governance initiatives under RGSPA. The ministry restructured the BRGF scheme as per the proposal in the last year’s budget. It has already spent 6 months in restructuring the scheme in 800 sub-districts in the 100 most backward areas. But all of a sudden, BTGF has been delinked from getting support from Central government.

Similarly, the ministry has developed 10 software applications with one more under development under the RGSPA scheme. It feels that if the scheme is left to the states then the scheme implementation would be adversely affected. Moreover, the applications developed by it for integrating the Panchayats uniformly will have no use as the states have their own software.

Recently, during the State Panchayati Raj Ministers conference, the states were complaining of lack of funds and the delay over the allocation of central funds. They have said the lack of funds have resulted in the failure of various government policies including the flagship Swachh Bharat Mission as Panchayats played a very important role in building public toilets. For instance, the Panchayati Raj Minister of Uttar Pradesh has said that the state had to cough up Rs 8,000 crore from its exchequer to keep the Panchayats running.

Questions & Answers

• What are the implications for Gram Panchayats?
• What are the criticisms?

 What are the implications for Gram Panchayats?

Functioning of the Panchayats is through Grants-in-aid as well as through levy of taxes. Even though the role of the ministry has been truncated, it is said that it would not affect the flow of funds to the Panchayats. As per the 14^th finance Commission’s report, every Panchayat would be given Rs 20 lakh in a year.

What are the criticisms?

• Critics points out that once the central funds stop, the states would not spend money on running Panchayats. As a result, there will be lacunae in implementation of the government schemes and policies. So, there exists a need for the existence of a cabinet minister to promote and advocate the cause among the states.
• The decision of the government is considered as a downgrade for democracy by many critics. According to some estimates, there exists some 58,000 gram Panchayats without permanent office facilities. This needs a well functioning ministry to take democracy to the grass roots level.
• Merging or subordinating Panchayat raj will be against the constitutional mandate, in particular the Eleventh Schedule.
• Though, the Panchayati raj comes under the State list but, as per the 73rd constitutional amendment, the Centre becomes responsible to work with the States to fulfil the obligations of self-government.

The ministry performs various activities like bringing state ministers together, funding research, commissioning expert studies, convening academic experts and more. This will help in taking care of special interests of Dalits, tribals and women representatives and will promote democracy at the grass roots level. Diluting the ministry will affect these pro-democratic activities of the ministry.