June 22, 1998

Tardy progress on the LDF Government's unique decentralisation programme sparks a row.

By M G Radhakrishnan

The departed Marxist patriarch E.M.S. Namboodiripad will probably be turning in his grave. For the last mega project he had masterminded -- the People's Planning Programme (PPP) -- has led to a controversy fuelled not just by the Opposition, but ironically by his own family members.

EMS' son-in-law and eminent scientist A.D. Damodaran recently dropped a bombshell with his public remark that the ambitious decentralisation programme -- which the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) Government considers its proudest achievement -- was "a complete waste". The very next morning, the veteran leader's son, E.M. Sreedharan, an economist and member of the state Planning Commission, retaliated saying that those who thought the programme was a waste were "anti-state and anti-progress".

That went for Opposition leader A.K. Antony of the Congress as well. As member of the PPP's high-level monitoring committee, he had initially agreed that the scheme was "significant" but has been singing a different tune now. "The programme," he says, "has failed because of the Government's lack of sincerity on decentralisation of power."

Under the PPP, a record 40 per cent of the state's Ninth Plan allocation has been earmarked for local bodies. But as Antony misses no opportunity to point out, till February the state Government had, by its own admission, utilised barely 15 per cent of the Rs 749 crore provided as grant-in-aid to these bodies during 1997-98. This despite the high-pitched claims that more than 1.5 lakh development projects have been planned by the 990 panchayats in the state.

To make matters worse for the Government, a statewide opinion poll conducted by a local daily concluded that the majority of respondents found the performance of the two-year old LDF Government far from satisfactory. In a separate statement, state Congress President Vayalar Ravi went as far as to say that "there were attempts to impose commissar rule in the state as the CPI(M) cadres had become the arbiters of development, bypassing the local bodies".

The volley of criticism has put the Government on the defensive. Chief Minister E.K. Nayanar dismisses the charges as politically motivated and cites the LDF's win in the June 4 by-election to the Ernakulam assembly seat as an endorsement of the "good work of my government". However, he was quick to extend by a month the last date for the utilisation of the PPP grants. "Under-utilisation of funds is a teething problem as this is a concept that is entirely new even for the local bodies," he says, assuring that the funds would be fully used by June 30, the extended deadline.

To be fair, there have been pockets where the PPP has made a difference. For instance, Vallikkunnu panchayat in Malappuram district -- selected as the best panchayat in the state last year -- built three waterways and a sea wall besides setting up a bio-fertiliser plant and a mobile library last year. "We have 69 more projects lined up for next year," says panchayat President U. Kalanathan. According to figures available with the Government, prawn production in areas under various panchayats had increased by 3,000 tonnes and vegetables by 689 tonnes during the same period.

More important, the PPP enjoys voluntary participation of the locals. More than 1,500 km of roads and 1,000 km of canals have been built across the state by voluntary labour alone. In each district, a 100-member Voluntary Technical Corps consisting of retired professionals helps in the implementation of the schemes. At least 25 per cent of the panchayats have mobilised funds on their own to match allocations. Says Chapparappadavu Panchayat President P.P. Balan Master: "We managed to build a Rs 4.5 lakh bus stand by raising as much as Rs 4 lakh from voluntary contributions."

However, with over 50,000 projects -- roads, canals, minor irrigation and power, schools, fishery, poultry and other kinds of farming -- under way in various districts, the Government and the panchayats are being accused of taking on more than they can handle, resulting in mismanagement and tardy progress. To check delays, the Government issued 40 orders last month transferring power from bureaucrats to the local bodies. In what was seen as a revolutionary move, it also set up expert committees at the panchayat level with the power to accord technical sanction to various projects.

Despite these measures, Local Administration Minister Paloli Muhammed Kutty admits that there are delays. "There are complaints from a large number of panchayats that officials on the committees are deliberately sitting on sanctions," he says Such admissions have only provided more ammunition to those like Antony and Damodaran to attack the Government with. Their contention is not so much the intent or the potential of EMS' People's Planning Programme but, as economist and monitoring committee member K.N. Raj puts it, "the familiar trap" into which it has fallen. A pity that a programme designed to free the cause of development from political differences is achieving just the contrary today.

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