The Hindu Business Line : Planning for local bodies

If Kerala is to continue to deliver successful outcomes in the decentralisation development process through local bodies, issues like Centre-State co-operation will have to be sorted out.

K.G. Kumar

In the run-up to the Eleventh Plan, local self-government institutions in Kerala are readying themselves to execute a range of projects. And, going by what Union Panchayati Raj Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar said last week, they seem to be particularly well placed to do so.

Inaugurating the second phase of the “People’s Plan” process, Aiyar said that Kerala has been a widely acclaimed role model for the decentralised development process through local bodies, and the State’s performance in the last two decades had been watched and appreciated not only nationally but even internationally.

According to the Minister, Kerala’s relative success has arisen from the fundamental consensus on decentralisation of the development process, regardless of the change of governments. The first phase of the decentralised planning was launched around a decade ago during the previous stint of the Left Democratic Front (LDF), under the stewardship of the present Finance Minister of Kerala, Dr T.M. Thomas Isaac, and the late I.S. Gulati, economist and former Vice-Chairman of the Kerala State Planning Board.

Areas of concern

However, despite Mr Aiyar’s words of praise for Kerala’s decentralisation experiments, there are problems in the field. According to a study titled ‘Emerging Issues in Panchayati Raj in Kerala’, conducted by SDC CapDecK, Centre for Socioeconomic and Environmental Studies and the Centre for Rural Management, poor participation in grama sabhas, lack of public awareness about the significance of local bodies, the absence of transparency in administration, and a lack of vision on local development and governance are some of the major areas of concern.

The Kerala Panchayat Raj Act envisions a citizen’s charter, which ought to be revised annually. However, the study discovered that many panchayats make no efforts to frame a charter and in those rare cases where such a charter has been scripted, there is a mismatch between promise and reality – the services delivered do not measure up to the standards promised in the charter.

Clearly, it will be difficult for Kerala as a relatively low-income State to continue to deliver on its decentralisation promises without some help from outside.

The Union Minister said that with the country sustaining its present rate of growth, the Central allocation for rural development and welfare schemes would be increased to Rs 100,000 crore in the next budget from Rs 81,000 crore set apart in the previous budget.

State Govt’s grouse

But the LDF Government in Kerala does not feel it is getting its fair share from the Centre. Thus, last week the Food and Civil Supplies Minister, Mr C. Divakaran, protested against the exclusion of Kerala from the National Food Security Mission. In a statement, the Minister said it was another example of the Centre’s neglect and injustice towards the State.

The Minister said 12 States had been brought under the Mission, aimed at increasing the production of rice, wheat and pulses. The Kerala Government had been taking strong measures on its own to increase food production.

Mr Divakaran said the formation of the Farmers’ Debt Relief Commission, disbursement of interest-free loans to farmers and procurement of paddy were among the measures taken by the State Government to increase farm production.

While the Centre was only providing Rs 6.20 a kg for procurement of paddy, the State was procuring paddy at Rs 8.50 a kg. As a result, procurement had gone up from 13.96 lakh quintals in 2005-06 to 23.6 lakh quintals in 2006-07.

On another occasion, the Minister told a journalist that the Central norms for assessing poverty level posed the biggest threat to the Public Distribution System (PDS) in the State.

Some of the norms fixed by the Centre to categorise people Below Poverty Line (BPL) and Above Poverty Line (APL) were totally unacceptable to Kerala, he said, as it would be a drastic underestimation of the poverty level in the State.

For example, as per the Central norm, people owning houses with tiled roof were included in the APL category. But in Kerala, even houses in the “one-lakh” housing colonies had tiled roofs.

Similarly, owners of houses with one electric lamp were to be categorised as APL groups as per the Central norms.

However, in Kerala 20 units of electricity were given free to families. Literacy was another Central criterion for evaluating poverty, which if applied in the Kerala context would lead to the conclusion that there were no BPL families in the State, as it had already achieved total literacy, the Minister said.

Evidently, if Kerala is to continue to deliver successful outcomes in the decentralisation development process through local bodies, these issues will have to be sorted out.

The writer can be contacted at kgkumar@gmail.com

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