Why panchayats are not given salary like other two tier of democracy By Manohar Manoj, Editor, Economy India

Why panchayats are not given salary like other two tier of democracy

By Manohar Manoj, Editor, Economy India

Rahul Gandhi while addressing the CII business summit, said, the 73rd and 74th amendment of constitution are the key to the issue of administrative-political system of the country, this is the sector which has not yet been fully supported by the political parties of the country.

 It is a big irony that we start discussing the things without considering actual status and sequence of the issue. On the one side Rahul is advocating panchayati system in contrast to MP oriented First tier and MLA oriented second tier of democratic governance. While talking about the whole  political-administrative system, actually Rahul does not able to behold the whole set up of the country in uniform and cohesive manner, so he could not able to point out the various imbalances and paradoxes which exist in  our whole system and set-up of the country. These imbalances reflect in form of lack of level playing between first-Second tier and third tier. The first- second tier means MP-MLA are provided appropriate salaries and facilities but kept toothless over their administrative affairs in their respective constituencies. On the contrast Third tier, especially an elected village head has been kept deprived of salary and all facilities but has been given unchecked immense executive and financial rights, resulting in big leakages in the local development programs and above all the unnoticed bureaucracy has become actual ruler of our system, who is making all shots in the name of democracy which lacks a complete vision that what would be or must be our administrative political structure of the country.

  Rahul should know this fact the position of MP in first tier of governance is not very powerful on executive front; they may be powerful on legislative front, but absolutely not on executive front. The legislative power of MP is also being interpreted upon through their party whip or through the instruction of leader of the party.  The executive power enjoyed by a member of parliament is only have advisory nature and that of recommender one. They get MPLAD fund that is of 5 crores in a year, that is their first and last financial executive power otherwise they have no say in their constituency's administration despite their said public accountability towards their constituency people. The same case applies with the second tier of democracy, MLA also.

In state like Bihar, even MLAs have been kept deprived from their MLA fund unlike other states.

Talking about the first tier of democratic governance, the reality is that, the democratic face of the govt. in the first tier is concentrated and confined with PM led cabinet only, which cannot alone look  after and address the day to day problems of 120 crores citizen of the country. This democratic face of PM and its cabinet is followed by the long and large size of bureaucracy. This bureaucracy is legally and practically not accountable to the public; they are accountable to their democratic boss only who uses them with their own whims and fancies. Down the order in the second tier of democracy the democratic face of the govt. lies with CM and his cabinet and rest area is filled with long and large hierarchy of bureaucracy.  Again, down the order the three layered third tier of democracy panchayati raj, which is being vehemently advocated by Rahul Gandhi is widely represented by elected representatives at gram panchayat level, at block panchayat level and at district panchayat level. This sector has been undoubtedly availed with fair amount of political and executive power, but very astonishingly, they are not being given pay, salary, perks, allowances and facility environment on the line of first and second tier.

So, it is assumed that this third tier sector siphon out money out of allocated funds to them and thus they meet out their all expenses as well as their own pittance. This is the most significant characteristics prevailing upon our panchayati system, which is not being addressed on any behalf. That is why, on contrary to the Rahul Gandhi's statement, people sometimes say that Panchayati Raj system is  more corrupt than the officers and thus the cause of democratic decentralization and strengthening of local self government in India have got paralyzed  because of this sect oral imbalances and their over corrupt tendencies. These imbalances are quite visible, the first tier and second tier are availed with pay and facilities but deprived with executive power in their constituency and on the contrary, the third tier has been availed with enormous executive power but deprived with pay and salaries.

We are not able to comprehend that if we provide a fair amount of executive power to the MP and MLA in their respective district and block administration, it will curtail the bureaucratic lazardness over the administration and thus it will enhance their public accountability,  In the same way if we avail the monetary facilities to the PRI representatives along with their executive and governance power, it will  actually provide them a proper level playing field for our all three tier of political governance. And after doing this had we started to establish structural combination of politicians-bureaucrat system on all three tier of democratic systems.

In India the panchayati raj system which was brought in India through Balwant Rai Mehta committee to implement community development plan in 1950s, has now become Integral and inseparable part of our democratic governance.

Right now many central and state sponsored schemes are being implemented through panchayati raj institutions (PRIs) and almost 12-15 percent of the total state financial resources have been delegated to these institutions, but at the same time many implementation problems have also arisen over. It is said that all three layered panchayati raj system and its office bearers are more corrupt than the government official, then something seriously we must dealt upon it.

The ex rural development Minister Raghuvansh Pd. Singh used to say that mukhiya (village head) is more corrupt than the officers. Usually before the induction of panchayati raj, the block level officers used to implement several village development schemes, now these schemes have been delegated to the PRIs, taking into consideration, the representative from people would take keen interest in providing local self government with the sense of more honesty, integrity and sense of urgency. But roughly it is estimated, the bureaucracy were siphoning 25 percent amount of the allocated funds, which have been increased up to 35 to 40 percent under the PRIs.

These allegation leveled against local self government representatives may be  true or not, it is a matter of study research, but one of the major imbalances which we don't heed and  people are not watching, these PRIs , despite being shouldered with loads of responsibilities, power and duties along with funds carved out through central and state finance commission along with central sponsored schemes, they have not been given basic things, that is their pay, salary, perks, allowance and other facilities  related  to their work.

Now the question is why there is no salary, allowances and perks for these public representatives. Do we think or do we assume that without providing pay and perks to the third tier public representatives, can we carry on this system free from misappropriation of fund, can we go ahead without siphoning of public money meant for the regional and local development.

If someone thinks, to meet out the salary expenses to the PRI representatives, where the money will come from?. To meet out the salary expense of around 28 lakh PRI elected representatives would require a huge fund. One who advocates PRIs, they should also think on this line that in spite of making PRIs an emotional tool of slogan of public participation in the democracy,  If we  plead PRIs in order to promote public participation in a democracy, we need a creation of level playing and a more balanced policy mechanism for the PRIs. Still many people are in illusion over PRIs that it acts as a panacea for democratic decentralization of the country.  The fact is that, here also in third tier, like the first and second tier, people have to wait next election to express their anger over the PRIs representative. Because there is no time to time meeting of gram sabha provisioned for the gram panchayats, there is no functioning of monitoring committee. Gram pradhan or Mukhiya spend the money in wayward manner, there becomes a cult of strong factionalism in panchayat.

So the person who regard themselves visionary of  this  system  should at least pick a point from where, a new beginning should be initiated and the existing imbalances among the all three tier of governance could get averted.

It is true that monetary cost of panchayati raj operation is very huge and these expenses would have no return. I think that is why the political leadership and the top bureaucracy of the country are not doing anything on this count. To my mind there may be two viewpoints over this. The first viewpoint is that any constitutional provision should not be thought out in the context of its cost and output and it's ultimately burden over the public exchequer. The second point is that, the presence of higher competitive environment during the panchayati raj elections have not persuaded the decision maker to think over this crucial pay and perks point of the elected representatives.

In the local self body elections, the contesting candidates are ready to spend about 5 lakhs to even one crore and so on. At the time of 3 layered election of three tire democracy of local self government at gram panchayat level  ( gram pradhan, sarpanch, ward member), BDC Member for block panchayat level and councilor  for zila panchayat, we witness that there become a huge competitions among the contesting candidates to register their presence in this structure of three tier of democracy. The representative of local self government  are being given monthly salary in different state as per their state laws, but they are very meager amount, if we take the Bihar panchayati raj, the salary ranges between Rs 300 to 1200 per month. But since the quantum of power they are enjoying is enough, the financial power of a gram pradhan is far bigger than that of MLA now. So it is assumed that the various funds allocated for different socio economic development of rural areas are being siphoned by the village head.

It is estimated that on an average Rs 2 crore comes in a village panchayat in a year. If a village head takes even 15 to 20 percent commission, so he would be earning 30-40 lakh in a year very easily. Now if we say gram pradhans are corrupt, it should have level playing like the representatives of first and second tier. Until unless we provide them proper pay, allowances and perks on the same line of first and second tier of democracy, we cannot raise the misappropriation of funds meant for the development of panchayats in a judicious manner. A village head has to deal around 5-7 thousand population. In order to that he has to keep one or two assistant, he has to make expense on vehicle fuel, mobile etc. We generally see, being a local representative, dozens of people go to mukhiya and ask for several kinds of donation and tribute. In this context it becomes imperative to give them a reasonable amount of salary and then trap them vehemently in graft and corruption cases. If we think on the cost and output line too, on the panchayati system, I think to provide salary and all other facilities to PRIs, is a beneficial step on the part of govt.  The transfer of all around 3-4 lakh crore in a year take place to third tier institutions, Even if it's 20 to 25 percent amount get leaked or siphoned off, then it is better to provide 10 percent of this money get spent over their salary and other count, so practically it will save the 15 percent of graft money which got siphoned off by the elected representative of third tier of democracy. This initiative should be followed by a strong anti graft act especially for the 3rd tier of governance. I think govt. of Punjab has done very rightly, it has brough all third tier representative under the purview of state lokayukta.

 I do not mean to say the provision of proper salary and allowances to PRIs representatives would automatically omit their corrupt tendencies, it may be or may not be. But with the induction of this provision we would certainly get a level playing field for anti graft campaign in the country against all three tier public representatives in an equal and uniform manner.             

High time for all alertness on both pre and post disaster front

High time for all

alertness on both pre and post disaster front

By Manohar Manoj, Edior, Economy India

This is not development; it is greed at the cost of annihilation of humanity

We should know these facts that India is a vast country having variety of geographical character and natural structure, so here arrival of natural calamities in various forms is almost inevitable. Therefore, sometime we have extreme drought in some parts of the country, sometime heavy rains in some part of the country, sometime cyclone in some part of the country, sometime earthquake. We have long sea coast, so we should be always ready for cyclone, storms and heavy rains in the coastal region. We have hilarious mountains in the northern part, so we should be always ready for landslide, cloud burst, earthquake in the said region.                      We have big chains of rivers, so we should be always ready for the seasonal floods. We are attached with Himalayas so we have variety of seismic zone, so we should be ready for quakes.

But, when we talk about pre preparation for all kind of disasters it is including not only the natural calamities, but also various kinds of manmade disasters also or say development oriented disasters. Say for example Bhopal gas leak event held in 1982 was in a way manmade disaster. The Union Carbide insecticide plant was installed in residential area of city and there MIC gas leak in the plant took thousands of lives and generations of agony for the humanity.

At micro level on day to day basis what we see, we have road-rail-air accidents, fire burning accidents, terrorist and naxal attacks etc. Talking about manmade disasters, we face various type of epidemics and mosquito- born diseases in form of dengue, chickengunia, plague, pneumonic diseases etc. So in all we will have to prepare a pre plan to face all kind of natural and manmade calamities.                                                                            For all these we need all alert 24 hour disaster control mechanism. A mechanism instituted on all level of governance whether at central level, state level, local administration level and also on private sector and NGO sector level. Generally we need a group of all disaster management professionals including anti bomb squads, fire fighters, swimmers, army persons, police persons, doctors etc. For this we need a very broad structure to meet out all the problems arising out of disasters whether of any kinds.

In year 2004 India faced tsunami waves in its southern and south east coastal part. Latter on it was realized that if we have had pre warning tsunami devices we could have protected thousands of lives and their assets. Because the tsunami waves which came in year 2004 had epicenter in Indonesia and it  took around 45 mnts time to come across south India. In the meantime if the pre warning devices had been there, many lives could have been protected. Now India has such device, but it was availed only after major tragedy took place in the country.

We say that smart and wise functioning of meteorological dept. can warn the upcoming havoc and tragedy well before. In Uttarakhand case, even Met. department confessed this fact, that they could not forecast the event in an emphatic manner.

Talking about quake, we already know the seismic sensitivity of different regions of the country; the whole countries have been divided on the basis of various category of seismic zone. Normally the quake event mostly affects the buildings and constructions. The building which are very old and the one which have not been constructed following the quake proof technology; they are affected most with quake events. So the preparation on such kind of disasters requires strict formulation of quake proof building technology.

 When we talk about country specific disasters, we should adopt anti disasters measures accordingly. It is true that to avert the effects of disaster and to operate the post disaster operation, there requires huge amount of resources, manpower and technology. The countries which have lack of resources or having poor economy, they lack in relief operation also. But the general trend is that in the circumstances of disaster and calamities, the whole world and international organizations get united and they give donation and other help to the needy country in magnanimous manner. Only thing is that how smart a country operates the pre and post disaster operations with the help of modern anti disaster technology and training.

Some people quote the famous example of Malthus, who had said the over population of a country or a region get controlled by nature in form of various disasters, so country or human should check their population through preventive or natural checks. But, when we talk about disaster, we cannot relate this issue with the issue of population control only. America is richest country as well as wisest country of world, but in last 2-3 years America witnessed numbers of disasters consisting numbers of storms from sandy storm to katerina storm etc. But ultimately all country whether poor or rich, prone or remote to disaster, they should be always ready to arrange the pre disaster as well as post disaster preparedness in their respective zone

We know we have variety of disasters in terms of drought, flood, cyclone, storms, tsunami, earthquake, landslide, cloud burst, toofans, epidemics, and manmade events like terrorist event and mass killings by criminals and naxals, accidents(road, railway, air) and fire burnings etc. And these all disasters demand separate and different preparation. I think these preparations should be started first through mass awareness about different preventive measures for different disasters events. We have an institution like NIDM(National institute of disaster management) which studies the various technicalities attached with disasters. We should brought our all school, colleges, offices and all public institutions under mass awareness about the all possible disasters in the country and region in particular.

Second part of pre preparation of disasters should be adopting strict norms about quake proof buildings, constructions. Third, we should have strong sense of road and traffic management and alike rail and air traffic management with highest degree of security element. If we talk about epidemics, we should have high degree of pre management about cleanliness and all. For meeting out fire and house burning we already have good network of fire fighting departments., the only thing lacks, that is alertness.

Talking about pre preparation about disasters, we should take the issue of this recent uttarkhand disaster in a very serious way. As of now there was tug of war between develop mentalist and environmentalist. Sometime we perceived that environmentalists' motive were to only create hurdle in the way of development. We used to say that environmentalists don't consider the scientific and technological aspect of development and they straightforwadingly condemns the various development project whether it is dams or river valley project or cutting of jungles for the establishing rail, roads etc. Untill now we considered that environmmentalists are insane and they do everything on the basis of perception  not on the basis of science and technology meant for development. But the Uttarkhand's tragedy episode has clearly proved that environmentalist concern were right, because the developmentalists do not take project just according to the development need of the people, rather according to the greed of some vested interest groups.

 The government prepares programs like dams and river valley project just to garner the public money,. I always feel that money spent over water whether for irrigation canal or river barrage or dams, it actually goes into the water. Water is a free gift of nature in form of river, sea, and reservoir. Actually we do not understand when we try to construct dams; we try to control the almighty nature. It is true that with the help of technology and resource, we become able to do things in wayward manner, but the question is ultimately does it last? We commit wrong not only on ecological terms, but we also do wrong in economic terms. To my mind construction of dam is a shier misuse of public money. The law of economics says the output should be always ahead of its cost, otherwise project cannot be made sustainable. So the construction of dams is neither viable in economic terms nor sustainable in ecological terms.

Construction of dams and any construction is not a need of development, rather the greed of planners and engineers who spent huge amount of public money to siphon out the money in to their pocket. In the same way the neo corrupt and neo rich builders lobby, who have erected row of building on the bank of various rivers over Uttarakhand ,without studying the composition of soil and rock, they not only destroyed the ecology there, rather they are responsible for the annihilation of humanity. The result is before us.

The coast of river could not tolerate the speed of water and as a consequence,thousands of building, cars and life flown away into the rivers. It is not a development, it is actually commercialization and greed of business which brought builders there.

Science and technology is for the sake of humanity and its development, it is not for the annihilation of humanity. But the modern path of development have taken science and technologies under its clutches and just use it or misuse it for the sake of commerce and business profit, that is why we allow construction of dams, buildings in the hilly region. It is actually insanity on the part of developmentalist and planners who are doing such kind of things.

We know in plains area we can do some unavoidable developmental work at the cost of environment. For example we construct roads, railways line and bridges after cutting some trees, but it is re maintained by plantation and a forestation. But we cannot make the bank of rivers in the hilly region as strong after allowing construction there. 

In conclusion, both the pre and post disaster management require four cornered stragegy. First legislation and regulatory, second is bringing institutional coordination between all direct and indirect disaster management agencies, third is to make alert the anti disaster professionals like meterologists, disaster scientist, Army, police, firefighters, Doctors, swimmers etc. and fourth is to avail sufficient numbers of disaster management equipments like ambulence(Road, air, water), moving trauma hospitals, Hellicopter, accidents trains, artificial housing materials and food & shelter items on demand.

Now the time has come when we should go for that kind of policy which can allow developmental  activities within the periphery of sustainable environment and second for the country this is high time to start a national campaign for both kind of pre and post preparation for all kind of disasters at the optimum level.   q