HYDERABAD: Gram panchayats in the state are powerless, fundless and sidelined institutions which simply exist on paper and have not much role to play in governance on the ground. This can be summarised from a research paper, ‘Decentralization and Participatory Planning by PRIs in Telangana: A study of Grama Jyothi programme’, published recently in Journal of Rural Development, which is published by the National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj.
The study was conducted by Chirala Shankar Rao, assistant professor with Council for Social Development, Hyderabad. The Telangana government can take a few points into consideration from the research paper as it plans to develop a draft bill on panchayat raj institutions and discuss it soon in the Assembly.
Little control
Although the Constitution (73rd Amendment) grants panchayats control over 29 subjects like primary health, education, rural electricity, housing, drinking water, sanitation and agriculture, the Telangana government has transferred only 17 subjects to the panchayats which have effective control on only two subjects: drinking water supply and minor irrigation tanks. Of the 29 subjects, 12 are yet to be transferred to GPs and for 23 they do not receive any funds from the state.
As regards 27 subjects no functionaries are appointed to the panchayats, points out the CSD study.
Moreover, although about half of state’s budget expenditure is on subjects vested with them, panchayats have almost no access to the funds most of which are routed through government departments and parallel committees formed in villages like VSS or DWCRA which have also become a hurdle to effective functioning of panchayats.
The study reports that the participation of villagers in Grama Jyothi programme of Telangana government was a meagre 20 per cent in Gangadevipally village in Warangal Rural district, hailed nationally as a ‘model village’ and famously mentioned twice in his ‘Man ki Baat’ by prime minister Narendra Modi.
In many other villages, it was found to be much lower, in some cases less than the quorum of 10 percent.
Grama Jyothi is a bottom-up approach of development by the government, aimed at developing village through the participation of villagers.