PLANNING AT LOCAL LEVEL: REFLECTION ON LOCAL GOVERNMENTS IN WEST BENGAL, INDIA

Abstract

In India the process of decentralization resulted in the creation of “people’s institutions”, local self-governments known as panchayats. While they were only granted constitutional legality in 1992, in the State of West Bengal they had already been created in 1973, to support community development and to encourage participatory governance. The author, after presenting the structure and the functioning of this three-tier system, discusses its weak areas: the fact that funds are not devolved at par with the devolution of functions to the panchayats, the resulting  low levels of participation in meetings and the fact that the panchayats are "horizontal interventions in an essentially vertical administrative arrangement" which makes it difficult for them to bring government officials under their coordination. The author also presents a successful example of popular participation in the field of primary education through “Sishu Siksha Kendras”, innovative locally designed and managed child education centers set up at village level. In his view, while panchayats in West Bengal have been functioning in the interests of rural people since the 1970s, there is scope for further improvement.