Democratic decentralisation in India is usually thought of as devolution of the three Fs – Funds, Functions and Functionaries – to local governments. So far in this country, we have seen patchy progress in all three and the one that has lagged behind the most is functionaries, or staff. The 73rd and 74th amendments to the Indian Constitution in 1992 established local governments as constitutional bodies and identified 29 subjects that were to be devolved to Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI). This law also required all the states in India to pass corresponding legislations. This is democratic decentralization, since it involves the transfer of powers to democratically-elected local government bodies in rural and urban areas.
The Gram Panchayat (GP) is the key institution in this framework of local governance, and has been delegated multiple responsibilities in executing key developmental schemes financed by the state and central governments. There are many problems with the flow of funds to GPs, but even so, the quantum of funds that flow to them has increased significantly over the years. For instance, in the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), a GP on average could handle works running into lakhs of rupees each year. There are many other government schemes that require GPs to plan and implement developmental works. In addition, GPs are also expected to raise local revenues to complement the fiscal assistance it receives from the state.
In recent years, many doubts have been raised on the merits of decentralization itself – on its ability to deliver better quality of public services, on its willingness to raise resources and on its ability to improve local accountability in general. Critical to meeting these expectations is the level of devolution of functionaries to the control of local governments in our country. The Planning Commission’s approach paper to the 12th Five year plan admits that an important reason for the relative lack of success of many flagship programmes in India is that the local institutions that should run these programmes are not adequately empowered as they have seen little effective devolution of funds or of control over functionaries.
In this piece, we focus on the issue of functionaries - a critical component that’s missing from the decentralisation frame as things stand at present. There are several ways in which GPs experience this capacity constraint:
• In many states, GPs function with virtually no staff. For example, it would not be uncommon to find one Panchayat Secretary managing affairs for three GPs in Bihar. In these states, even in departments that have been devolved, functionaries have not been transferred to the GPs. There are several unanswered questions regarding the precise definition of duties of staff of transferred institutions. There is also no clarity on the scope of functions of these institutions and what services they may be held accountable for. In all these instances, the GP remains a helpless tier of government, unable to take on any additional responsibilities.
• Even where functionaries have been transferred, significant obstacles remain - The Government of Kerala for example, prescribed the transfer of staff to match the transfer of functions and institutions. Thus, scores of government staff such as teachers, agricultural extension workers, doctors, veterinarians etc have been placed under the control of local governments. These government officials, now brought under the control of GPs, have to interact directly with citizens in the local planning processes and in other aspects of their daily work. However, the transferred staff are recruited by the state public service commissions and their salaries are paid by their respective line departments (just as before the decentralisation reforms). They join service in their respective line departments and are set for tenure in their line departments. GPs have little or no say in their performance assessments
This is not surprising in the least. The government bureaucracy, which has long since been oriented towards centralised governance and a hierarchical reporting structure, has to witness a radical transformation to complement the functioning of GPs now expected to represent local populations as democratically elected people’s representatives. There is no doubt that GPs need more control over their staff, perhaps even the right to hire and compensate their own cadres. Any scepticism one may have regarding the ability of GPs to manage their own staff need only look at research findings that show that teachers appointed by GPs in village schools with powers to hold them accountable for their performance have been turning in consistent results as opposed to regular government teachers.
As Jairam Ramesh mentions in his interview to Mint, it is futile to expect GPs to implement programmes like MGNREGS successfully without building their technical capacity. To the extent that technical capacity can be built only by trained manpower in its ranks, it is safe to believe that the lack of functionaries is the biggest constraint our GPs face today.
Suvojit Chattopadhyay is a development professional with over six years of experience in India, UK and Ghana. Doug Johnson is a development consultant with experience in microfinance, impact evaluation, and payment solutions. Doug has worked in China, India, and Nepal.