MARGAO: The Zilla Panchayats in Goa are a mere constitutional requirement as we have passed the Goa Panchayat Raj Act which mandates the constitution of Village Panchayats and then Zilla Panchayats.
However, given the fact that no powers have been devolved to the Zilla Panchayats they really have no significant role to play in the State’s development.
Actually speaking Article 243-B of the Constitution of India provides for three Tier Panchayati Raj system namely the Village Panchayats, Taluka Panchayats and Zilla Panchayats. However, smaller States having a population of less than 20 lakh like Goa is given the choice of not having constituting the intermediate tier and have to constitute only the Village Panchayats and Zilla Panchayats.
However, the Zilla Panchayat experiment has not succeeded in Goa because it is a small State and most often the Zilla Panchayat and Assembly constituencies practically overlap. As such there is a conflict of interest and given the fact that there is no devolution of powers to the Zilla Panchayat the Panchayati Raj Act is not implemented properly.
The Finance Commission that is to be appointed under Article 243-1 is non functional pointed out former union minister Ramakant Khalap while pointing out that if proper devolution of power takes place then MLAs and ministers will become redundant.
In fact that is the main reason why powers are not being devolved to the Zilla Panchayats so that the MLAs can still decide what development should happen in their constituencies and the ZP member not been given the power.
Khalap was opposed to holding the Zilla Panchayat election on party basis. “This is an institution to strengthen grass root democracy so let some credible local leadership evolve and strengthen democracy,” he argued while pointing out that there have been cases of ZP members emerging victorious even at the Assembly election.
Narendra Sawaikar of Bharatiya Janata Party expressed similar opinion by pointing out that Constitution demands that we have a Zilla Panchayat in Goa. However, he admitted that in the present scenario the Zilla Panchayats cannot do much as no powers have been devolved to them.
“The ZP members are seen fighting to spread the pittance they get to undertake works in their constituencies when in reality they would have got much larger budget and have been able to undertake a lot more work than what is being done,” he said.
He however said funds are not being utilised properly by the Zilla Panchayats and said lot of Central funds are returning without being used as the Zilla Panchayats could have utilised those funds.
“Actually there is no proper understanding of the funds, functions and functionaries of the Zilla Panchayat and there lies the main problem,” he said.
However, Roland Martins of GOACAN who works with Goa Institute of Public Administration and Rural Development (GIPARD) to strengthen the panchayats in Goa was of a totally different opinion and said that Zilla Panchayat members are ignorant about the powers that they have and said without devolution of any more powers they can use the existing powers to make themselves very effective by using the Village Development Committee.
“The main question that needs to be asked is how to make the Zilla Panchayat relevant as nobody is doing anyone a favour here,” he said pointing out that the Village Development Committee has plenty of funds and the same could be used by the ZP member to undertake projects in their constituencies.
“The ZP member has to prepare a proposal and submit it to the Gram Panchayat Development Plan (GPDP) which then can approve the project and get it sanctioned as the sanctioning authority is the GPDP itself,” he said admitting that the works undertaken this way will be smaller but pointed out that big works could be subdivided into phases.”
He lamented that ZP members have not even thought out of the box.
“How many ZP members have a list of the senior citizens in their constituency as if they had this list they could have initiated the programme to set up a day care centre for senior citizens in the village,” he said.
In fact the functioning of Zilla Panchayat has to change opined Roland who demanded that full-fledged ZP Secretariat be constituted that will only give out information.
“There is so much information that can be given out and once that happens you will be able to see the difference,” he said.
Roland was of the opinion that the complaints that ZP have not been given powers or funds are nothing but mere excuses for non application of their minds to find answers to the problems in the existing law itself.
Ironically, some ZP members keep complaining of not given powers and that they cannot work as per the spirit of the Panchayati Raj Act. Yet ironically which saying they cannot work they will still contest the ZP elections time and again.
Former chairperson of South Goa Zilla Panchayat Nelly Rodrigues despite complaining about not given powers and unable to work as ZP member has been elected as ZP member at every election and is all set to contest the next election also.
Incidentally, ZP election is all seen as a launch pad for one political career as an MLA. Nelly herself has unsuccessfully contested Assembly election before while in recent past Wilfred alias Babashan D’Sa and Clafacio Dias have got elected to the Goa Legislative Assembly after being ZP members.
However, given the meagre fund allocation at ZP level it does not really make much sense to launch one’s career as MLA through the Zilla Panchayat.
