: The new government should make a major intervention and go in for several corrective measures if it wished to redeem the State’s internationally acclaimed experiment in democratic decentralisation from the groove in which it remains stuck now, said economist M.A. Oommen.
Delivering the K. Ramachandran Nair memorial lecture here, Prof. Ooomen, an authority on finances of local government institutions, said the starting point of any reform in decentralised governance as it existed now was to produce a second development report with a renewed database. “Twenty years have passed since the first development report was prepared and published. Building the database, which is essential for efficient development planning, still remained a poor priority in Kerala,” he said.
The local governments in the State had registered phenomenal growth, the total receipts of grama panchayats, municipalities and corporations rising from Rs. 247 crore in 1993-94 to Rs. 10,980 crore in 2013-14. The average expenditure by each grama panchayat had risen during the period from Rs.12.55 lakh in 1993-94 to Rs.8.3 crore in 2013-14. The total expenditure by grama panchayats had also risen phenomenally from Rs. 1,662 crore in 2004-05 to Rs. 8,117 crore in 2013-14.
In terms of comprehensiveness, coverage of development sectors, magnitude of resources covered and so on, the participatory planning experiment in Kerala was better than the much touted other such models. Even so, the emerging scenario showed a ‘highly routinised and bureaucratically controlled’ situation which called for drastic reforms. “The great idea of project formulation and its distorted performance today called for immediate reform,” he added.
Prof. Oommen said there was urgent need to introduce a stable and sound financial reporting system. “We do not have reliable, comparable and consistent data relating to income and expenditure,” he said and pointed out that the budget, which was the most important instrument of financial control at the Union and State levels, was not seriously pursued at the local government level. Of equal importance was endemic corruption at the local government level, which must be faced and fought. The various reforms introduced as part of the People’s Plan Campaign to strengthen the accountability mechanism such as performance audit system and social audit system were virtually dysfunctional. Ideally, decentralised governance should find a place in the planning and implementation strategy of agriculture, animal husbandry, health, drinking water and waste management as a natural and organic part of Kerala’s development process. The State Development Council, along with the District Planning Committees (DPCs) could be refashioned to serve as a platform to achieve this. Agriculture in Kerala cannot be developed except as a joint venture with the local governments, he pointed out.
Prof. Oommen said there was need to introduce a stable and sound financial reporting system.
