3 Review(s)

Institutionalising Panchayati Raj in India is an exceptionally insightful account of the nation wide attempt at decentralization in India in the early 1950s, known as the Community Development Programme. Tracing the growth and decline of this programme and of other decentralization programmes started since then, the author identifies three forces: political factors, bureaucracy, and international organisations and bilateral donors, responsible for blunting the effectiveness of decentralisation. The decentralisation efforts in Maharashtra and Kerala point to the Practical difficulties in having district planning programme which does not entrust planning to the Panchayats along with funds. This work has a lot to say about the present district planning arrangements as well as the Centrally Sponsored Schemes and comes to the conclusion that they full very much short of expectations. According to the author the proliferation of the parallel structures that is, administrative organizations which are parallel to the constitutional bodies (Panchayati Raj Institutions) are antithetical to decetnralisation. The concluding chapter gives an account of the future challenges facing Panchayati Raj Institutions. About the Author V. Venkatesan entered the Indian Administrative Service in 1960 and served in various capacities in Maharashtra. He worked in the districts in the early 1960s when the Zilla Parishads were set up in Maharashtra and is familiar with the issues involved. Later on, he became Planning Secretary in Maharashtra when district Planning and Employment Guarantee Scheme gained momentum. During this period the author completed his Ph. D. from the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune, under the guidance of Prof. M.V. Dandekar. He went to the Centre as Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture in 1983 and in 1985 he joined the World Bank. He was working in the Technical Department in the Africa region of the World Bank till he retired from the World Bank in 1998. In this book, his latest, the author brings to bear his practical experience in the implementation of decentralisation both in India and Africa.