The need for forming an exclusive list for local
self-government institutions as well as the problems triggered by the
imposition of Centrally sponsored schemes on States came up for
discussion at a consultative session on improving local governance in
the country. The interactive session with the Expert Committee on
Panchayati Raj headed by Mani Shankar Aiyar which reached here on
Thursday to elicit opinion on strengthening Panchayati Raj institutions
was held under the aegis of the Kerala Institute for Local
Administration and the National Institute of Rural Development.

Former
State Finance Commission chairman M.A. Oommen said that Schedule 7 of
the Constitution should be scrapped and the functional role of the Union
and the State governments should be restructured. Owing to the failure
in defining activity boundary and responsibility mapping, grama
panchayats had become the ‘happy hunting ground’ of the other tiers.

He
stressed the need for limiting the number of Centrally sponsored
schemes to 50 and said that flagship schemes which mandated a share from
the State governments were upsetting their priority. Consent of the
States should be sought for introducing such schemes, and it should be
used for research and development.

A local government
service cadre should be carved out. Kerala had set a model in
institutional decentralisation. But bottom-up planning was not
happening. Civic bodies had no fiscal space. A local taxation inquiry
panel should be constituted. Panchayats should publish a women’s status
report. Grama sabha should become the central piece of decentralised
planning and operational cost should be identified, he said.

State
Election Commissioner K. Sasidharan Nair sought a Constitutional
amendment for defining the powers of the Union and the State
governments. Panchayats were regional authorities in many States. The
functional space of panchayats should be defined. Taking a cue from
Kerala, a unified law should be framed for fixing the role and powers of
grama sabhas, he said.

Kerala Sashtra Sahithya
Parishad (KSSP) representative P.K. Ravindran spelt out the problems in
conducting grama sabhas. Now, there were only ward sabhas which
represented the needs of the wards. A wholesome development view for a
local body could be evolved only by a body with a representation of all
wards.