The Core Committee to draft the charter for Panchayat Convention to be held in April 2008 has unanimously passed the draft charter after two day deliberations (13th and 14th March) in the capital. The committee agreed that flexibility for some modifications to include more ideas and views should be kept in the draft. Speaking on the occasion, Minister for Panchayati Raj, Mr. Mani Shankar Aiyar said that this is a significant step towards inclusive growth through inclusive governance.
The main features of the Draft Charter include recommendations related to :
Functional empowerment of Panchayats:
Panchayats should shoulder the responsibility of all the 29 matters listed in the XI Schedule of Constitution. Hence, all 29 subjects of this Schedule must be devolved to the Panchayats.
To ensure clarity and suitability in the devolution of activities to Panchayats, States should ideally route the activity mapping through legislative measures.
Various parallel Societies, Agencies, Committees and Missions which have been created by Central and State level line ministries and departments to implement specific schemes that fall in the Panchayat domain, such as DRDAs, SSA and NRHM societies etc. must be either abolished or merged with appropriate levels of Panchayati Raj Institutions so that Panchayats have full control over technical and non-technical manpower working under them.
In order that Panchayats function as Institutions of Self Government, their domain has to be widened. Judicial powers, Police, Revenue, Regulation and Development functions must be devolved to Panchayats.
In order to effectively implement the 73rd Amendment in letter and spirit, a uniform Panchayat Code should be prepared by the Ministry of Panchayati Raj. In order to facilitate this, efforts have to be made to bring the Panchayat subject from the State list to either the Concurrent list or the Central list .
Administrative and financial procedures will need to be simplified and redesigned to suit Panchayati Raj.
Financial empowerment of Panchayats:
State and Central Governments must ensure that there is clarity and regularity in fund flow to Panchayats. The system of creating a single window in State budgets to channelise funds to Panchayats, which is in place in seven States and a few Tribal areas covered by the Sixth Schedule, is the most appropriate arrangement and must be universally implemented by all States.
Centrally Sponsored Schemes and other funding streams must give greater flexibility to enable local planning and application of funds by Panchayats. The guidelines of centrally sponsored schemes and other funding initiatives of the Government of India such as additional central assistance that pertain to the functional domain must be modified to ensure the centrality of Panchayats at all three levels in planning and implementation. Compendia of all guidelines of flagship centrally sponsored schemes should be regularly published, so that Panchayats have up to date information on them.
Funds devolved to Panchayats by central and state governments ought to reach them directly with as few intermediate steps as is necessary. There should be uniform guidelines for funds flow applicable to all Schemes across all States, with time limits fixed for funds to reach the Panchayats. The proposed Central Scheme and Programme Monitoring System should enable the tracking of both release of funds and submission of utilization reports by each Panchayat. It should also function as a financial information system, so that all Panchayats are aware of when funds are released by Central and State governments.
Devolution of untied funds through block grant transfers by the Central and State Finance Commissions should substantially increase to keep pace with the increasing responsibilities entrusted to Panchayats for the maintenance and upkeep of local public services and infrastructure development. Central Finance Commission Grants must supplement the funds devolved to Panchayats, and must not be subsumed into funds transfers made by States to the Panchayats.
There must be no conditionalities imposed by States on the expenditure and investments by Panchayats from their own revenues.
Panchayats should have access to bank credit to take up development projects such as universal housing for the poor, support to SHGs and their federations and remunerative infrastructure assets.
Apart from these other recommendations included, improving the capacities of Panchayats through devolution of functionaries, training, Panchayat level office infrastructure and provision of technical support, provision of staff for the Panchayats, provision of adequate remuneration for elected Panchayat representatives, training for Panchayat elected representatives and officials, provision of Physical infrastructure and Information Technology for Panchayats, decentralized planning and implementation, Constitution of District Planning Committees by States in conformity with the provisions of Article 243ZD of the Constitution, arranging technical support for DPCs to prepare district plans,
Some Incentives for Panchayat performance were also suggested. It was felt that devolution upon Panchayats would need to be accompanied by incentives to create a greater focus on Panchayats functioning as self-governments that are accountable to their people. The Eleventh Plan recognizes that there is a need to build in incentives that will encourage the States to devolve functions, funds and functionaries to the PRIs. It has stated that in order to capture the extent to which this process and empowerment of PRIs has actually progressed in each State, a suitable Devolution Index will be developed and will be called the PRI-Empowerment Index.
The draft charter will now be circulated to about 2.5 lakh Gram Panchayats all over the country so that all of them get a chance to deliberate on it and give their views. Thereafter the draft would be presented during the Panchayat Convention to be held from April 22-24, 2008 for finalisation.
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AVC/ST/LG
(Release ID :36538)