Panchayat role in reverse migration to villages

A slew of measures initiated under the Centrally Sponsored Scheme of Rashtriya Gram Swaraj Ab-hiyan (RGSA) for strengthening the panchayat administration across the country is good news. These include long-term training of panchayat officials, training of elected representatives in smart classrooms, and investment in gram panchayat infrastructure throughout the country with a special focus on the Northeastern States and Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir. Elected representatives of the gram panchayat being adequately informed about their role and responsibilities is crucial for the overall development of the villages concerned. The role is not confined to drawing up a list of beneficiaries of various government schemes and programs, but the elected representatives being aware of all the available resources, grievances, and problems of villagers is critical to reflecting those in the planning process. The Panchayati Raj Act empowers the people to take part in the planning process so that gram panchayats truly function as the most important organ of decentralised democracy. The elected representatives creating the space for the villagers to present their views and share their problems and suggestions is essential to making Panchyati Raj Institution (PRI) robust and democratic. To ensure this, the representatives themselves must first become aware. Unfortunately, winnability factors like caste, creed, and religion getting priorities over merits and capabilities of candidates continue to pose a stumbling block in the election of many qualified candidates. Nevertheless, once a candidate is duly elected to function as representatives of people, efforts must be made to train them to build their capacities to perform their roles and responsibilities. This training needs to be continuous so that it builds the next level of capacity of the elected representatives after completion of each training programme. While elected representatives are the eyes and ears of villagers, the capacity of the executives of panchayats is critical to translating the aspiration of people for the development of their villages into sustainable projects and initiatives. The Central Empowered Committee Funding of RGSA giving a go-ahead for Long-Term Domestic Training Programs for up to one year of duration for officials of PRIs and Panchayati Raj Department in the States/UTs under the State component of the scheme is expected to bridge the gap. The training programme is aimed at ensuring that the officials receive advanced, sector-specific training that will upgrade their skill set for better service delivery at the grassroots. The training programme will be seen to be successful only when it also ensures work culture among officials and employees so that villagers are not made to return from panchayat offices without their work being done or made to make multiple visits even to get delivery of services online. Thousands of village youths in Assam and other northeastern states migrating to cities and towns within the region as well as outside the region in search of greener pastures is a grim story of underdevelopment and failure of the PRIs to turn the potentials of the villages into opportunities of growth and development. This hard reality is a reminder for elected representatives and officials that people aspire for development in all aspects of life, including better education, assured income, remunerative returns for their farm produce, and utilisation of natural resources for their economic well-being, and do not want to remain a passive beneficiary of cash payouts or distribution of benefits. Freebies distributed through panchayats meet the needs of the downtrodden and needy but cannot alleviate their economic conditions. Agriculture is the backbone of the village economy, but subsistence agriculture without production linked to a modern marketing ecosystem is not sustainable and turns farm production non-remunerative. Elected representatives taking a proactive role and learning from best practices in other panchayats to modernise farming, processing, and marketing require meticulous planning and consultations with villagers. They must facilitate the interaction between domain experts and farmers, weavers, traders, women, artisans, and youth to find pragmatic solutions to their problems. Construction of panchayat buildings and installation of computers with internet connectivity are required to roll out effective e-governance and digital record keeping. Training is essential to ensure optimal utilisation of infrastructure, but educating the villagers about e-governance is of paramount importance to ensure their active participation in it. The People’s Plan Campaign launched in 2018 is a strategy to ensure voluntary involvement of the community, elected representatives, frontline workers of various departments, and self-help groups for the preparation of panchayat development plans in a campaign mode. The challenge is to turn this campaign into a powerful social movement to make panchayats evolve into a powerful institution for self-governance at the grassroots. Availability and flow of funds to panchayats are no longer an issue, but utilisation needs to be evaluated to find out if resources are getting channelled in the right direction to fulfil the primary needs of villagers. Elected representatives and executives of panchayats prioritising their intervention in some specific areas like financial literacy, skill development, and digital empowerment of villagers can reverse the outmigration from villages.