The meeting of the South Goa District Planning Committee (DPC) that was held after the dates of the Zilla Panchayat elections have been announced, indicates just how serious the government is about the functioning of this tier of the panchayat raj system. The meeting that is scheduled to be held every year was convened after five years, at the fag end of the current term of the Zilla Panchayat. Clearly, as pointed out by the former Deputy CM Vijai Sardesai, the DPC meeting was nothing but a ‘ritual, a political farce’. What could be expected to be achieved by this meeting? If at all the government was serious, then such meetings should have been held at the beginning of the ZP term and then followed up annually.
The defence that the district planning committee is not the ZP and should not be co-related to this, is rather weak. If such a committee exits, and there is a ZP for the district, is there any reason why it shouldn’t meet at regular intervals, so that the ZP members and the MLAs can together plan for the district? The Panchayati Raj Act 1994 bestows a number of functions on the ZPs, including aspects of agriculture, minor irrigation, water management and watershed management, animal husbandry, dairying and poultry, fisheries, small scale industries, drinking water, poverty alleviation programmes, education, cultural activities, health and sanitation, primary health centers and dispensaries, women and child development, welfare of the weaker sections. Couldn’t the ZP members have had provided meaningful inputs on these topics at the DPC? When the third tier of the Panchayati Raj system is turned into a ‘political farce’ as it has been termed by an MLA, then it calls for introspection and again brings into play the debate on whether Goa requires this tier of the system.
Where is the planning for the district if the committee made up of elected representatives meets once in five years, and that too at the end of the term? It is clear from this that the administration does not take the ZPs seriously. They serve very little purpose under the current circumstances. Unless various powers are devolved to them and they are made financially independent so that they can decide and act without government clearances, the ZPs remain nothing but a Constitutional necessity and a financial burden to a cash-strapped State. Of course they should also be held accountable for their actions. But, before the next elections are held, Goa needs to decide whether the ZPs are required for a State and a population of this size.
If there is an audit undertaken at the end of the term of the ZPs, it will discover that very little has actually been done in the districts by the ZPs. Development plans have to come from the grassroots and in this the district planning committees and the zilla parishads play a major role as the members have direct contact with the people, that officials in government departments will not have. The experience and the contact of the elected grassroots representatives has to be utilised in the best possible manner. Goa failed in doing this in the past term of the ZP.
The ZPs till date have only served to allow politicians to keep a hold on their constituencies and also allow some aspiring MLAs to use this as the first step towards their journey to the Legislative Assembly. With elections to this tier of panchayat raj just weeks away, the government has to consider how best the ZPs can be empowered so that they can serve the purpose for which they have been constituted. The first task will be to have a meeting of the district planning committee as soon as the ZPs are in place, so that there can be a five year plan made and implemented.
