The next challenge

14/07/2000

The next challenge The future of the decentralisation process is uncertain, and the real threat comes from the bureaucracy. A wide spectrum of people - from political leaders to policy planners - share such fears. "The bureaucracy is organised, and is a great problem. Earlier there was stiff resistance from the bureaucracy to the decentralisation process. But after having long interactions with them they have agreed to the process," says V J Thankappan, chairperson of the State Administrative Reforms Committee and former minister for local administration. But this 'yes' is not being taken seriously.

"The bureaucracy is yet to understand that the panchayat is not a department but a government," says S M Vijayananda, secretary to the department of local administration.Kutty says a panchayat decided on a charitable cancer hospital but it took almost two months of shuttling to the state capital before the project was sanctioned: "The bureaucracy is left out of the decentralisation process. This can destabilise it. We need to reform it first," says he, adding, "The panchayat directorate is an edifice of the bureaucracy. It is not flexible. Administrative reforms are not at pace with the decentralisation process."

It has been one year since the government ordered the transfer of 40,000 employees to the local bodies. But this is being deliberately slowed down, resulting in shortage of staff in panchayat office. About 200 panchayat s are involved in major conflicts with government departments and officials. Individual departments have been hostile in some cases. The officials who have been transferred to the local bodies continue to be controlled by their departments and are reluctant to take up duties assigned by the local bodies. Several top-level bureaucrats interviewed by Down To Earth made it clear that the bureaucracy would not give away its powers.

Clearly, the dual control system is not working out. Technically, local bodies control most of these officials. But the officials don't want to shed their earlier attitude of controlling everything, including the panchayats. The government has withdrawn its control over the panchayats and the officials who were formerly under its control. The officials can't even complain to the state government - they can only approach a tribunal for grievances.

"How can you implement 40 per cent of the state's planning with a handful of officials. If they aren't transferred, the process may collapse," says Ratnakumar J, secretary of the Ezhuvathirujhi Gram Panchayat. Employees' organisations support the process but not the officials. A code of conduct was evolved to address this problem. "Local leaders have already adopted it but not the babus. There is a deliberate effort to create clashes between the state departments and the local bodies by the bureaucracy," says a senior bureaucrat in the spb. "The biggest problem is the bureaucracy - it refuses to go away," concedes Isaac. "It can be tackled only with stern actions from the political leadership and from popular pressure," he reckons. "A new relationship has to be built between government officials and panchayat leaders," says Shreedharan.

Central government programmes, like poverty eradication, have not been integrated with local plans. The bureaucracy uses this to interfere. "That is one mischief," Shreedharan acknowledges. There has been an increase in the programmes sponsored by the state government in the form of 'missions'. "It shows the bureaucracy's determination to derail the decentralisation process," says Isaac.

With the bureaucracy holding out and Kerala's history of government changes every five years, the future of this process is uncertain. With change of government, programmes of the previous government are also done away with as a ritual. The elections to the assembly are due next year. It is very important that the political commitment cuts through party politics.

Here, the challenge is up to the civil society. It has succeeded in making decentralisation an issue of survival for politicians. There is general approval of the process among political parties. The civil society now has to target the inherently stubborn Indian bureaucracy, surely an unenviable task. But just as it dealt with politicians, it will have to generate enough pressure on the bureaucracy to make it fall in line. Till that time, the process will remain an experiment, not a tried and tested model for the rest of the country. Till then, there will be anticipation, hope, and fear.

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