Public Services Provided by Gram Panchayats in Chattisgarh: A Citizen Report Card
Current discourses and praxis in the governance terrain in India are embellished by two seemingly contrasting trends – one, specific drafting of proactive legislation that attempt to bring the institutions of the state closer to the citizens and two, a small but steady growing repertoire of tools and approaches from the civil society that aims to hold the state accountable for its actions. The Citizen Report Card (CRC) pioneered by the Public Affairs Centre (PAC) in 1994 has over the last decade enhanced citizen-state interactions by empowering citizens voice on one hand and also, enabling the state to diagnose service delivery systems and processes. Anchoring around user feedback, CRCs have altered the landscape of public governance by creating forums for effective state-citizen interfaces.
The Citizen Report Card (CRC) of Rajnandgaon and Bastar was conducted under the auspices of the UNDP and Planning Commission supported project “Rural Decentralization and Participatory Planning for Poverty Reduction”. Though the spirit of decentralization was unleashed in India through the 73rd Constitutional Amendment Act, enacted more than a decade ago, limited devolution and inadequate capacity of local Governments have undermined the effectiveness of Panchayati Raj institutions and diluted the intent of decentralization. The National Common Minimum programme of the current central government has resolved to undertake a number of initiatives for empowering the Panchayati Raj institutions in consultation with respective state governments.
The overall objective of the project referred above would thus be to provide catalytic support and create an enabling environment for decentralization at the state level and to strengthen endowment of the local government with sufficient autonomy and resources to respond to local needs. The specific objectives of the project are:
- Strengthening decentralization of decision-making and pro-poor development planning
- Improving the fiscal domain of PRIs for local development through resource convergence and local resource mobilization
- Enhancing the oversight functions of the PRIs especially Gram Sabha to strengthen transparency and accountability in local governance
- Supporting enhanced devolution and autonomy of PRIs through facilitating policy making for decentralization.
The CRC was carried out with a specific focus to understand the significance of local rural bodies in providing basic services to the people. Major departments that are entrusted with providing basic services to the people were taken up in the study. Electricity, health services, PHE, PDS and other government schemes were targeted for the study. The CRC tried to analyze the functions of the above said departments from the point of view of service users. The issue of people’s participation in rural self governance constitutes another important component of the study. It is anticipated that the Citizen Report Card would contribute in strengthening rural self governance and we sincerely hope that the findings of the study would be of assistance to the Government and its functionaries in formulating people centered policies and insuring their effective implementation.
