People’s Plan gets World Bank pat

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, JAN 2: While the People's Plan is drawing criticism from the Opposition as well as constituents of the ruling LDF, a ...

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, JAN 2: While the People’s Plan is drawing criticism from the Opposition as well as constituents of the ruling LDF, a World Bank team which visited the State recently termed remarkable the achievements under the plan in the last two years.

Kerala’s decentralisation is probably the largest of its kind in the world, noted the team comprising Blarel, Constantino and Venkatesan. The report was compiled by Gajanand Pathmanathan, principal economist World Bank (India).

The team, in its report, stated that the success of People’s Plan in Kerala indicated that empowerment of people was a feasible agenda in India. That such rural transformation was taking place in a state with a history of democratically elected communist governments was noteworthy.

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According to the report, a governance structure extending from neighbourhood and beneficiary groups to gram panchayats, block and district panchayats had been put in place. It appreciated the level of people’s participation in plan formulation andimplementation.

As the World Bank team put it: “Three million people (10 per cent of the state’s population) take part in gram sabhas and other activities. This was a far-reaching, innovative and courageous new approach to rural development and local governance”.

The report placed on record that the People’s Plan reflected a profound commitment of the ruling LDF to a total change; to empower disadvantaged groups and make institutions responsible and accountable.

It stated that the state Government had radically restructured the rules governing the execution of public works, facilitating their execution directly by the local bodies concerned or beneficiary committees.The team also lauded the mechanism set up for transparency and checking corruption.

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A WORD OF CAUTION: The World Bank team drew the Planning Board’s attention towards some important issues. It noted that there had been many circulars and Government Order on People’s Plan. Moreover, there were many committees and task forces whichconfused’ the elected members of local bodies. Such a situation was appropriate for bureaucrats to thrive and tie the local bodies into knots and eventually make them subservient to the bureaucracy.The team asked the State Government to carefully monitor the issuance of orders failing which Kerala’s decentralisation might go the way of the previous attempts at decentralisation. Moreover, bureaucrats would have a field day interpreting rules. This would also create a situation where elected representatives of the local bodies would have to visit the State capital more often thus preparing ground for centralisation.

What made WB happy

Planning takes place close to the people. The neighbourhood groups provide a forum for the people to express priorities in a democratic manner.

People are conscious that they have the resources to fulfil their aspirations.

Ensures transparency and a good safeguard against corruption andmisutilisation of funds.

Powerful instrument for social change.

Facilitates local governance by villagers.

Effective mechanism to drive policy changes like the role of the government in providing services to people, pricing the services which are provided and decreasing the reliance of the local bodies on bureaucracy for giving technical clearance to the schemes and executing them.