Decentralisation and Participatory Planning by PRIs In Telangana: A Study ............. DECENTRALISATION AND PARTICIPATORY PLANNING BY PRIs IN TELANGANA: A STUDY OF GRAMA JYOTHI PROGRAMME

Grama Jyothi programme by the Telangana government aims at inclusive development through a people’s participatory planning at Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs). This paper studies the status of decentralisation and budget allocations for PRIs and implementation of Grama Jyothi programme for participatory planning in Telangana State. The results are based on State budget documents and a field survey in four villages from two districts - Warangal and Adilabad. The study found that in Telangana, the PRIs, especially Gram Panchayats, are suffering from many problems such as lack of devolution of all the constitutional subjects to PRIs; no direct control over many village level functionaries; major allocation of State budget on the PRI’s subject are spent through parallel bodies; low level of per capita revenue and expenditure and limited taxation powers for Gram Panchayats (GP); poor collection of local revenue; low spending on basic services. People lack faith and hope on functioning capacity of teethless GPs since they suffer from devolution of full functions and sufficient funds and functionaries. As a result, the people’s participation in Grama Jyothi programme was disappointing and it has not been successful even in famously institutionally developed village –Gangadevipally in the State. Hence there is an urgent need for devolution of all constitutional powers and sufficient funds and functionaries to PRIs in Telangana State for the success of participatory bottom-up planning programme like Grama Jyothi. Otherwise Mahatma Gandhi’s optimism about village republic will be unrealised and Ambedkar’s pessimism will stay real. and Participatory Planning PRIs Telangana: Study holdings lands, weaker sections STs, etc.


Introduction
The best, quickest and most efficient way is to build up from the bottom… Every village has to become a self-sufficient republic. This does not require brave resolutions. It requires brave, corporate, intelligent work" ……..M K Gandhi "What is the village but a sink of localism, a den of ignorance, narrow mindedness and communalism" ……Dr. B R Ambedkar Democratic, participative and inclusive institutions are stepping-stones for inclusive growth and development. Panchayat Raj Act 1993 under Seventy Third Constitutional Amendment was passed to realise this condition by providing the statutory framework for functional, financial and administrative autonomy at the village level where people run their own government and plan for their growth and development. Decentralisation is a process of empowering the local people through local governments by mobilising resources required for micro level planning and development. It suggests a system of multi-level planning, where the lowest unit is allowed to plan and implement everything that can be performed most effectively at that level and only the residual is left to the higher levels.
The initiative of Telangana State for people's participatory planning through "Mana Vooru Mana Pranalika" (Our Village Our Plan), later renamed as Grama Jyothi programme, aims at realising participatory planning and inclusive development in the newly formed State. Decentralised planning is an essential part of this programme. The vision of Grama Jyothi is envisaged as strengthening the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) for rural development by creating the sense of our village, our ideas, our resources, our problems, our solutions through our management among people. The mission of Grama Jyothi is to strengthen the PRIs for planning the natural resources, agriculture, drinking water, sanitation, employment, etc., required for integrated rural economic development, social justice and good governance. The objectives of the Grama Jyothi are a) Empowering the Gram Panchayats (GP) and Gram Sabha through awareness b) Democratic decision making and increasing the people's participation through accountability and transparency.
The mission, vision and objectives of the Grama Jyothi are noble and most relevant for the new State of Telangana to achieve bottom-up planning and people's participation in their own growth and development by empowering the PRIs. In this context, the following pertinent question related to PRIs in the State needs to be answered -Are the PRIs especially Gram Panchayats (GPs) in Telangana State sufficiently capable in terms of functions, functionaries and funds for the implementation of the programme like Grama Jyothi to ensure people's participatory planning ? With this background this paper attempts to study following objectives 1.
To study the status of decentralisation and budget allocations to PRIs in Telangana State.

2.
To evaluate the implementation of Grama Jyothi Programme for people's participatory planning in selected villages in the State and make suggestion for its improvement.

Methodology
The paper is based on both secondary and primary sources. The secondary data were collected from -State budget documents and village plan documents made under Grama Jyothi programme. The information on State budget allocation on 26 PRI subjects since 2014-15 to 2017-18 was collected. The details on revenue and expenditures and their sub-components at GP were obtained from village level plan documents.
The primary information on Grama Jyothi was collected from the field survey in four revenue villages in two districts (Warangal and Adilabad) under the broad study -'Review of the Grama Jyothi' conceptualised and executed by the Academic team of Council for Social Development (CSD), Hyderabad during September 2014 where both the authors were part of the field survey. The villages were selected based on purposive sampling method reflecting their level of development within the respective district as advised by the District Panchayat level officials. The villages of Gangadevipalli (Geesukonda Mandal) and Incharla (Mulug Mandal) were selected under the developed and backward village categories respectively from Warangal district. Similarly, the villages of Hajipur (Manchiryal Mandal) and Pangidi ( Sirpur (U) Mandal ) were selected under the developed and backward village categories respectively from Adilabad district. Both qualitative and quantitative data were collected through Focus Group Discussions and personal interviews with the stakeholders in GP -Sarpanch, ward members, officials and general public covering all social and gender groups in the village. Primary information on people's participation in Grama Jyothi programme, issues discussed at Gram Sabha and preparation of village plans, allocation of time and resources, people's perception about GPwas collected from a field survey. Analytical method along with basic statistics was used in interpreting the results.

Constitutional Provisions and Literature on PRIs in India
Panchayati Raj Act 1993 under Seventy Third Constitutional Amendment provided the statutory framework for PRI with stipulated functions, finances and functionaries. Article 243(G) of the Constitution stipulates endowment by law and by the legislature of a State such powers, authority and functions as may be necessary to enable them to function as institutions of self-government. Under the new Act, PRIs are expected to perform all development functions as suggested in the 11th Fchedule. For doing so, proper devolution of functions and powers from the regular line departments of the State government to the PRIs is a necessary prerequisite for healthy functioning of local bodies. However, the responsibility of implementing this act rests on State governments.
Under PRI Act, GPs are supposed to perform the duty of providing basic services at village level under 29 subjects namely: maintenance of roads, construction and maintenance of drains, cleaning streets, rural electricity, housing, drinking water, sanitation, agriculture, animal husbandry, fisheries, minor irrigation, watershed management, land reform measures including consolidation of holdings and cooperative management of community lands, social forestry, minor forest products, nonconventional energy, primary health, education -primary and secondary, family welfare, welfare of women, child, weaker sections -SC & STs, etc. In order to perform the numerous functions enlisted in the act, the extent of devolution should be adequate. In Karnataka, all the 29 subjects/ departments have been transferred to Panchayats with funds, functions and functionaries. This is followed by Kerala, West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh. Telangana and its parent State Andhra Pradesh need to go a long way in the direction of devolving powers to PRIs. Unlike other two PRIs at district and mandal levels, Gram Panchayats are vested with fund raising power through various local level taxes, fees and duties such as -impose tax on property, profession, lighting, drainage, water, etc; collect fee from building permission, certificate issue, license, cattle pond, seigniorage, etc; and impose duties on surcharge on stamp.
According to James Manor (1999), the four crucial conditions are required for democratic decentralisation to succeed (i) sufficient powers to exercise substantial influence within the political system and over significant development activities; (ii) sufficient financial resources to accomplish important tasks; (iii) adequate administrative capacity to accomplish those tasks and iv) reliable accountability mechanisms to ensure both the accountability of elected politicians to citizens and the accountability of the bureaucracy to elected politicians.
Viewed from an economic perspective, the case for decentralised planning rests on three conditions. First, micro-level planning of the local level resources and spatially dispersed economic activities pursued on a small scale at household and village levels. Second, bringing the peripheral groups of poor and disadvantaged within the mainstream economic processes. Third, having participatory mechanisms to promote the people's motivation, habits of self-help, local-level leadership and active role in strategic and planning decisions (Rao V M, 1989).
In recent times, there is an increasing realisation that genuine decentralisation leads to development. It is also felt that decentralisation of power to the local units of government is one of the best ways of empowering people, promoting public participation and increasing efficiency. According to the Human Development Report (1993), decentralisation, wherever functioning, has often been fairly successful in encouraging local participation, increasing accountability of local officials, reducing the costs and increasing efficiency. The report argues that the States should have provisions for the devolution of powers and responsibilities to Panchayats at the appropriate level for preparation of plans and implementation of schemes for economic development and social justice.
Journal of Rural Development, Vol. 36, No. 4, October-December : 2017 Devolution of power to local governments would lead to decentralised development (Kannan K P 1993).
Decentralisation experience provides many examples of how local planning was used as an instrument of social mobilisation (Oommen, 2004;Isaac, & Franke, 2000). Participatory development programmes and local selfgoverning bodies are instrumental in targeting resources toward disadvantaged social groups (Besley et al, 2005). Strengthening the PRIs is also important for efficient management of traditional biodiversity (Gadgil Madhav, 2007).
In order to strengthen the Panchayati Raj

Status of Decentralisation in Telangana State
The issue of decentralisation in Telangana State must be discussed by taking inputs from its parent State i.e. united Andhra Pradesh (AP) since the young State has not yet made any legislation regarding PRIs. All the legal provisions of PRIs in the united AP are applied to Telangana State. Decentralisation experience in AP shows that though the State is one of the old States in creating PRIs, the service delivery assigned to them is negligible. All the tiers of panchayats have been assigned large numbers of functions. But none of them has financial or administrative resources under their control to execute the functions. The Madhava Reddy Committee Report on Local Bodies as part of the exercise of Vision 2020 plan in united AP, had envisaged the empowerment of local bodies to manage services and create mechanisms for local communities to articulate their demands.
In Telangana, out of the 29 subjects of PRIs, only 17 subjects have been transferred to PRIs by the State government (see Table 1). Out of that, six subjects (agriculture, drinking water supply, minor irrigation tanks, social forestry, primary and secondary education and khadi and village industries) are provided funds and only two subjects (drinking water supply and minor irrigation tanks) have functionaries. Still, there are many subjects along with either functions (12) or funds (23) or functionaries (27) yet to be transferred to PRIs in the State. This situation of united AP in 2003 has not yet changed in Telangana State even after its formation in 2014. So far, the functions and responsibilities to the PRIs pertaining to agriculture extension are restricted to the selection of beneficiaries to various agricultural implements at the block/ mandal level; no such funds are devolved at the GP level (Sitaram 2000). On similar lines, a large number of subjects mentioned in schedule I and three subjects under schedule II of the Act have not been devolved to the PRIs so far except some residuary powers. If transfer of functions followed by devolution of finance, as listed in schedule II, takes place in the form of real decentralisation, the entire picture of local bodies will undergo drastic changes (AP SFC Report 1997). This process of devolution has not been initiated in Telangana State.
The inadequate and unsound financial base has impaired the working of the local bodies. Any talk of the effectiveness of the local bodies in the absence of a strong financial base is of no use. Currently in Telangana, PRIs receive three kinds of revenues: (i) assigned revenues, (ii) grants-in aid, (iii) revenue sharing. GPs in the State have been assigned many local taxes, duties and fees and important of them are house tax, vehicles tax, land cess, surcharge on stamp duty, surcharge on seigniorage fees (fees on materials other than minerals and minor minerals quarried in the village). However, despite their larger tax base, GPs depend overwhelmingly on government grants -development and general grants from the State and union (Finance Commissions and Backward Regional Grant Fund (BRGF)). Grants constitute more than half of the total income of the GPs in the State. The phenomenon of diversion of funds from Panchayats to other development organisations undermines the autonomy of the local bodies in the State (Gopinath Reddy, 2003). It was observed in the field survey that the present system of providing per capita grant is not of much help to the GPs with small population to take up any big multi-benefit infrastructure projects like a bridge, road, tank, etc., which may involve higher cost much above their per capita allocation.  Table 2 provides information on budget allocation to subjects of PRIs in Telangana from 2014-15 to 2017-16. The information is available for 26 subjects which may broadly cover all the PRI subjects. It shall be mentioned that the ruralurban classification of the expenditure is not given in budget documents; however, we can consider these expenditures as more or less under rural since most of these items belong to rural areas. The data show that 49.6 per cent of total budget was allotted to PRI subjects in 2014-15 which has slightly increased to 52.5 per cent in 2016-17, later it declined to 48 per cent in 2017-18. The items of welfare of SC, ST & BCs, general education, rural development programmes, social security and welfare, agricultural development programmes, and medical and public health are the major expenditure heads.

Budget Allocation to Subjects of PRIs in Telangana
The results show that in Telangana, though a major portion of budget expenditure (around 50 per cent) is made under the subjects of PRIs, they do not have any real say in spending the funds as most of the expenditure is rooted through line departments. The PRIs remain as spectators with no powers to spend the funds.
Officially it was claimed that Grama Jyothi programme was carried out to involve people in budget preparation and to prioritise the budget allocation as per people's expectation and allocate the budget as per their demand.    .2)   Observations based on field survey are presented to get the ground level experience of functioning of PRIs especially GPs in the Telangana State in the context of Grama Jyothi programme that is aiming at people's involvement in the village planning.

Basic Details of Field Survey Villages:
The basic information about population, elected representatives and entitlements help us understand the functioning of GP in the villages. This information for four survey villages is presented in the appendix tables A1 to A3. Gangadevipalli from Geesukonda Mandal of Warangal district, comprises a total population of 1084 with a majority (95.2 per cent) belonging to backward caste (BC) and rest to SCs, general and minorities. The female ratio is higher than the male (50.8 per cent). The Panchayat has relatively young but less educated elected representatives, with an average age of 41.8 years and average education of 5.4 years of schooling. Voters comprise 85 per cent of total population. There are 10 elected representatives in the gram panchayat with 80 per cent of female ratio; the president is a SC woman. Since the village got separate GP status in 1994, it started taking a different appreciable shape in its development. It is now fully green with the planted trees and clean with well maintained drainages. But it has its own underlying internal caste politics which are the result of single caste domination (Munnur Kapu) in majority positions in Gram Panchayat. The GP building is in good condition with two rooms.
Gangadevipalli is the award winning village at district, State and national levels including Nirmal Gram Puraskar (2007)

Functions and Functionaries at Gram Panchayat:
Availability of functions/institutions and their functionaries/employees of various public services is important in a village. The village plan documents (Table 3) provide information on this matter. It can be inferred from the data that no single surveyed village has all kinds of functions with adequate functionaries. Compared to others, Incharla village has no important functions like Indira Kranthi Patham (Self-Help Groups), veterinary centre, library, water & sanitation committee. Compared to other three villages, Pangidi, despite having many functions, does not have functionaries to work. The issue of concern here is that although a majority of the important functions and functionaries are operating in the villages, they do not function in coordination with GP which is an elected local self-government body. The elected representatives -president and ward members, expressed their concern about the independent operation of many functions in the village that rarely work in the people's interest. They demand coordination between all the functions & functionaries operating in the village and the elected body of GP for the effective delivery of services to the people. This would form a strong base for the devolution of functions & functionaries to PRIs in the new State.

Revenue and Expenditure of Gram Panchayats:
Sufficient revenue is important for the GP to meet its expenditure under various subjects. Tables  4&5 provide information Table 6 provides information on expenditure on various sub-heads in the study villages. The per capita expenditure is reported relatively high in Gangadevipalli (` 416) but very low in other three villages -Incharla (` 77), Hajipur (` 114) and Pangidi (` 107). It is interesting to see from the results of expenditure-revenue ratio that the final expenditure is more than the revenue collected in most institutional developed (Gangadevipalli -152.2 per cent) which was due to financial support from NGOs whose presence and support is for quite a long period. The expenditure in lower base is slightly higher than the collected revenue in backward village (Pangidi -109.2 per cent). The other two villages failed to spend even the total revenue collected. There are wide inter-village differences in the sub-heads of expenditure. In Gangadevipalli, the highest expenditure is made on electricity charges on water supply, street lighting and GP office but this is very low in remaining three villages indicating their lack of resources for spending on basic civic needs. Relatively major expenditures in other villages are -sanitation and building maintenance in Incharla; sanitation, establishment and drainage maintenance in Hajipur; and interestingly electricity charge on street lights and sanitation in Pangidi -the backward tribal village. This expenditure pattern reflects the development nature of villages, where institutionally advanced village like Gangadevipalli, spends on advanced services like electricity charges on water, street lights, etc., with decent spending on other basic needs like maintenance of buildings, establishments, drainage, sanitation where the backward villages struggle to spend on these items. The inter -village differences in per capita expenditure and also in sub-items of expenditure are due to multiple factors such as level of development, local institutional development led by people's participation, leadership, tax collection rates, etc.
The very low levels of per capita revenue and expenditures in GPs undermine their functioning. Discussion with elected representatives of the GP in the field survey revealed that many of the expenditures, especially on land distribution & development, agriculture, minor irrigation, animal husbandry, self and wage employment promotion, health, education, housing, infrastructure development like roads, electricity, etc., are routed through other parallel institutions, not through the GPs.

Implementation of Grama Jyothi in Surveyed Villages
The Grama Jyothi programme was aimed at preparation of village plans by the GP through Gram Sabha with people's participation. All the PRIs at three levels -Village, Mandal and District Panchayats -are mandated to prepare plans with the people's participation in a month time prior to presentation of State level budget. The State level budget allocations will be made according to the plans prepared by the PRIs. The village level plans are to be made through Gram Sabha according to the local resources and needs with people's participation across all the sections. The success of implementation of Grama Jyothi programme was evaluated through the field survey based on the parameters like people's participation rate, quality of plans -the issues of prioritisation in plans, resources, people's perception about PRIs especially GP, etc.
The observations from field survey revealed that the people's participation rates in the Gram Sabha to prepare the village plans are dismal in all the four villages even in the institutionally developed village -Gangadevipalli (20 per cent). It is even less than quorum (10 per cent) in backward villages -Incharla and Pangidi. Women's participation is low in all the villages except in Gangadevipalli where it stood at 55 per cent (Table 7). Despite huge awareness campaign at the State levels, there was no such effort at community, personal and door to door campaign at the GP level.
Inputs from Focus Group Discussions and personal interviews from general public revealed that though a majority of the people know about the Gram Sabha being organised, they are not fully aware about the Grama Jyothi programme and its importance. The people who do know about the programme have not shown any interest to participate because of internal political rivalry, like the people from opposition party (who lost the Panchayat's President Election) did not show interest to participate, caste politics in a way that the other caste people who are not in power did not show interest. Many farmers and agricultural labour could not participate as this programme was organised in peak agricultural season (August-September). People from habitat villages could not turn out to this programme as the Gram Sabha venue is away from their hamlet. Women did not show interest because of the feeling of suppression of their voice in the official meetings. Many individuals in the surveyed villages opined that there is no use of attending these meetings as they are all routine official programmes and their voice will not be heard by the leaders and officials. On top of all these reasons, the most important one for the low participation is lack of faith and hope in functioning capacity of Gram Sabha and the Gram Panchayat in solving their livelihood related problems since GP is teethless in terms of function, funds and functionaries.
Officially the Grama Jyothi programme schedule is designed to prepare the village plan on the subjects such as natural resources, agricultural land, basic infrastructure, welfare development, health, education and Harithaharam (green cover). It was noticed in the field survey that the only issues relating to Implementation of the Grama Jyothi programme has serious drawbacks in terms of sufficient time, resources -human, financial and logistics. Only one month time is given for all the three-tier PRIs (Village, Mandal and District) in the State to finalise the plans and it is only about ten days for the village plans. It was revealed in the personal interview with the officials that the time was too short for them especially for Mandal level officials who are supposed to attend the Gram Sabha of each village in Mandal. The financial resources were meagre and delayed in payment to organise the Gram Sabha to make the plans. The logistics like tent, chairs, tables, vehicles to transport people from habitat villages to attend Gram Sabha were absent in backward villages.
It is understood from the above discussion that the low level of people's participation and weak planning under Grama Jyothi is emanated from the view that people do not have any faith and hope on functioning capacity of Gram Sabha and Gram Panchayats. This view is true because in Telangana, the PRIs especially Gram Panchayat are suffering from many problems such as lack of devolution of all the constitutional subjects to PRIs; no direct control over many village level functionaries like village revenue officials (VRO & VRA), ration dealer, school teachers, medical doctor, veterinary doctor, agriculture extension staff, Adarsa Rytu, Gopala Mitra, ASHA worker, Anganwadi, MGNREG field assistant, electricity helper, etc; limited taxation sources and powers for GPs, resultantly they have to depend (wait long) on State and Central governments for funds; no autonomy to GPs in spending the grants from BRGF and Finance Commissions (State and Union). Because of all these problems, PRIs cannot really enjoy autonomy in their functioning and hence people still do not have any great faith and hope on them especially Gram Panchayats in carrying out the bottom-up and people's participatory programmes like Grama Jyothi.

Conclusion and Policy Suggestions
Democratic, participative and inclusive It was also found through village level plans made under Grama Jyothi programme that both the per capita revenue and expenditures remain at lower base at the surveyed GPs in the State and they are positively related with the level of development of the village -relatively high in institutionally developed villages and less in backward villages. Unlike in revenue from grantin-aid, wide inter-village variations are found in case of own revenue -taxes, fees and duties at village, mainly because of differences in revenue collection rates where it is high in institutionally developed village but very low in backward village. The inter-village disparities in per capita revenue and expenditure and also in their subcomponents in the surveyed villages could be attributed to the level of institutional development, effective leadership and active people's participation. Limited taxation powers for GPs creating dependence on funds from the State and Central governments and there is no autonomy to GPs in spending the grants from BRGF and Finance Commissions (State and Centre).
People's participation in Grama Jyothi programme in the surveyed villages was not encouraging even in institutionally developed villages because of multiple reasons like lack of awareness, agricultural works, political rivalry, caste politics, reluctance of officials and leaders in listening to the people's problems, lack of faith and hope on functioning capacity of Gram Panchayat in solving the livelihood related problem since they are teethless in terms of funds, functions and functionaries. Gram Panchayat in the State has no direct control over many village level functionaries like revenue officials (VRO &VRA), ration dealer, school teachers, medical doctor, veterinary doctor, agriculture extension staff, Adarsa Rytu, Gopala Mitra, ASHA worker, Anganwadi, MGNREG field assistant, electricity helper, etc. The planning under the Grama Jyothi in all the villages was made mostly on physical infrastructure projects like CC roads, drainage, building repair, etc., but not on other important issues like employment & livelihood, health, education and welfare, etc. Because of these problems, the implementation of bottom-up and people's participatory programmes like Grama Jyothi was not quite successful in the surveyed villages in Telangana even in famously institutionally developed village like Gangadevipalli.
Therefore, based on the above results it can be concluded that as long as there are no defacto deliverable institutions at village level with devolution of all functions and sufficient funds and functionaries, Mahatma Gandhi's optimism about village republic will be unrealised and Ambedkar's pessimism will stay real. If inclusive growth through decentralised planning is to be realised, the State government shall first have to devolve all the constitutionally recognised functions with sufficient funds and functionaries   Table A1.