Describe the growth of local government in Independent India.
Answers
local government in India refers to government jurisdiction below the level of the state. India is the federal republic with three years of government
- CENTRAL GOVERNMENT
- STATE GOVERNMENT
- LOCAL GOVERNMENT.
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Answer:
Local government in India refers to governmental jurisdictions below the level of the state. India is a federal republic with three spheres of government: central, state and local. The 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments give recognition and protection to local governments and in additional each state has its own local government legislation. Since 1992, local government in India takes place in two very distinct forms. Urban localities, covered in the 74th amendment to the Constitution, have Nagar Palika but derive their powers from the individual state governments, while the powers of rural localities have been formalized under the panchayati raj system, under the 73rd amendment to the Constitution. For the history of traditional local government in India and South Asia, see panchayati raj.
Since the late 1980s, we have been witnessing a wave of decentralisation globally, which is founded upon the idea of making governance more participatory and inclusive. In 1992, India too embraced this wave and amended its constitution with the intent to strengthen grassroots-level democracy by decentralising governance and empowering local political bodies.
The objective was to create local institutions that were democratic, autonomous, financially strong, and capable of formulating and implementing plans for their respective areas and providing decentralised administration to the people. It is based on the notion that people need to have a say in decisions that affect their lives and local problems are best solved by local solutions.
Though traditional forms of local governance have existed in India for centuries, the post-Independence period saw a shift towards building a system of local government, in no small part due to the influence of Mahatma Gandhi. The passing of the 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments, made it mandatory for each state to constitute rural and urban local governments, to establish mechanisms to fund them, and to carry out local elections every five years. The creation of this new three-tier system of local governance provided constitutional status to rural and urban local bodies, ensuring a degree of uniformity in their structure and functioning across the country. Provisions of these two amendments are similar in many ways, and differ mainly in the fact that the former applies to rural local government (also known as Panchayati Raj Institutions or PRIs), while the latter applies to urban local bodies.
Currently, there are more than 250,000 local government bodies across India with nearly 3.1 million elected representatives and 1.3 million women representatives.
How is the system structured?
With the introduction of the constitutional amendments, India’s two-tier system of a central and state government was transformed into a three-tier one, now with a local level below the state.
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In the case of rural areas, there are three nested bodies. At the apex, is the district council or zilla parishad, which is made up of a cluster of block councils or panchayat samitis, which in turn, are made up of village councils or gram panchayats. Each village has a village assembly or gram sabha comprising all adults in the village, who have the power to directly elect members of the panchayat. States with a population of less than two million (such as Arunachal Pradesh) may also choose to have a two-tiered structure, without the intermediate block-level institution.
How are local bodies funded?
In order to effectively carry out their mandates, both urban and rural local bodies require funding. States are required to set up a State Finance Commission once every five years to review the financial position of local government institutions and to make recommendations to the state governments, in order to ensure that local bodies have adequate financial resources to function.
1) Assigned revenue, which covers taxes, duties, tolls, and fees due to local bodies, that are collected by the state and central governments. The exact percentage allocation of these revenues is done through recommendations of State Finance Commissions.
2) Grants-in-aid and loans from the central and state governments, domestic institutions, financial intermediaries, capital markets, and/or donor agencies.
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Due to the differing nature of functions performed, the exact sources of revenue vary for rural and urban local bodies. For example, large urban centres such as Delhi and Mumbai are able to mobilise newer and more innovative forms of finance such as private finance, while smaller municipalities and rural bodies continue to depend on traditional sources such as central and state government tax shares, loans, and grants.
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