Mumbai: Governor Ch. Vidyasagar Rao has pulled up the Maharashtra government for not devolving full powers to the local bodies as mandated under the 73rd and 74th amendment of the Constitution.
Comparing the State’s attitude to that of the British Raj, the Governor said even the erstwhile rulers were more generous in giving up powers, while the government has remained hesitant. He was speaking at the inauguration of a two-day national conference to mark the 25 years of the two landmark amendments.
Maharashtra has so far devolved 14 of the 29 functions mandated under the amendments to the panchayati raj institutions (PRIs), while only 10 of the 18 functions have been given to the urban local bodies to make them self-reliant.
States such as Karnataka and Kerala have devolved 100% powers to the local bodies, and even appointed retired government servants to assist in local governance and functions.
Demanding that the government take a decisive call in two days and submit a report to him, the Governor said discussion and intellectualisation of the conference is useless until all powers are devolved.
“Unless you (Maharashtra) transfer all powers, discussing and printing all these books is useless. You must set an agenda, fix a time line, and submit a report. Simply keeping powers to yourself and holding a seminar is not good. Why are you so hesitant?” the Governor said.
Experts said the issue is not with the amendments and their implementation, but the lack of political will. Talking of the PRIs, they said only 2.5% of the revenue is generated by the local government while the expenditure is only a paltry 7.5% of the State expenditure.
“The State is not interested in giving up the agency functions to the local bodies. It only time and again displays artificial sharing of revenue while retaining agency functions,” said T.R. Raghunandan, former bureaucrat, and consultant and advisor, Decentralised Public Governance.
The amendments came into force in 1993 and created the third tier of governance, giving the local bodies a constitutions status. There are 34 zilla parishads, 351 panchayat samitis, and 27,896 gram panchayats.
The State has enacted several Acts to transfer funds, functions, and functionaries to the PRIs in respect of the 29 subjects. In 2009-10, it was ranked five in the devolution index of the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, and move up to the second position by the end of 2015-2016.
“While urban local bodies have made progress using schemes like AMRUT, Same Cities, and Swachh Bharat, a lot more needs to be done for infrastructure like roads, drinking water, and sanitation,” said the Governor.