The Trinamool Congress has scored a massive victory in the panchayat elections in West Bengal. It is 45 years since the first election for modern panchayats was held in West Bengal, and 30 years since Parliament passed the 73rd and 74th Constitution amendments recognising panchayats and municipalities as constitutionally mandated local self-governments for rural and urban areas, respectively.
Over four and a half decades, decentralisation has enabled the implementation of land reforms and development programmes, helped rejuvenate agricultural growth, and improve rural infrastructure and other development works. It has also helped generate social and political awareness among the people and groom new leadership across social, economic and cultural barriers. Thus, decentralisation has strengthened the roots of democracy.
However, the momentum of the process, set in the first decade, has hardly been maintained over the years. The initial enthusiasm has been sacrificed at the altar of party rivalry and power grabbing. A panchayat has now been turned into a ground-level apparatus for implementing government programmes, and carry forward departmentalism with little creativity and grassroots innovation. According to Article 243G of the Constitution, apart from implementing subjects under the Eleventh Schedule, panchayats have the power to prepare their own plans for economic development and social justice that match with people’s needs and priorities. They can do so by mobilising local resources through an inclusive, transparent, and participatory process. The focus is on local resources, local analysis of problems and solutions, and a collective vision. But there is hardly any effort to accomplish this task.
Panchayat planning in West Bengal thus requires a paradigm shift. Panchayats need to become planning bodies which are committed to local resource development, broaden the democratic decision-making space, and ensure decentralised development.
The rural landscape is changing. Wetlands are under stress. The level of groundwater is falling rapidly, and wells in many parts of the States are drying up well before the onset of summer. To accommodate the growing population, agricultural fields are increasingly being given for settlements. Gentrification is taking place even in rural areas. Local ecosystem services have dwindled, resulting in elevated vulnerability and risk. This is going to be further exacerbated by climate change.
The presently available aggregate data mostly based on conjecture at the village level are not adequate for the preparation of panchayat development plans. A cadastral map of natural and man-made resources comprising land, land use, water, settlements, community assets of health, education etc., and infrastructure by involving local people is necessary. Given the advancement of modern mapping technology and satellite acquired data product, village-level resource mapping can be easily done. The importance of micro-level data for decision-making has been realised across the world. In the last decade, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency compiled a nationwide geographic data (Smart Location Database) on a neighbourhood scale. It contains more than 90 variables under 10 topics.
Based on local-level data, it is important to work out development reports for all the gram panchayats in West Bengal. These may cover local geography, history, and cultural background; natural and human resource base including health and education, use of resources, changing trends, and problems of resource use; existing government programmes; development plans proposed at the village/panchayat level; and a vision for the future. Such an exercise requires the services of people from all walks of life. Technical support groups at the panchayat level involving professionals, teachers, and other personnels, both in-service and retired, and NGOs may help in a big way. This will set the process of grooming civil society at the grass-roots level, which is urgently needed for ensuring checks and balance in the highly politicised society of West Bengal. They can also help in social auditing at the lowest level. This will create a democratic space for debate and deliberations and promote decentralisation.
Srikumar Chattopadhyay, geographer, is with the Gulati Institute of Finance and Taxation, Thiruvananthapuram
