Panchayats: Bengal ranks ‘highly performing’, says Centre’s report
Kolkata: At a time when the Centre has been depriving the state of fund for 100 days work, rural housing and rural roads, the report on the ‘Status of Devolution to Panchayats in India – 2024’, prepared by the Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA) has categorised Bengal as ‘highly performing’.
Based on the weighted aggregation of six dimensional sub-indices, the composite devolution index (DI) computes Bengal’s score to 56.52 which is much higher than the national average of 43.89.
Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Andhra, Himachal, MP and Odisha with above 50 per cent score are behind Bengal while Bihar along with Assam, ikkim, and Uttarakhand emerged as came between 40-50.
“The report bears testimony to the fact that Bengal’s deprivation by the Centre is 100 per cent for political reasons and they have been providing lame excuses. After their (the BJPs) defeat in 2021 Assembly elections, they stopped disbursing money for 100 days work. Before that, we received the best prize for it for four times. We have scored high in several parameters, including our democratic methods, institutions and transparency in work,” said Pradip Mazumdar, state Panchayats and Rural Development minister.
He claimed that Bengal’s score would have been more than 60 per cent if adequate manpower was deployed. “The recruitment has not been possible as OBC recruitment matter is still pending before the apex court,” he added. States/UTs which have scored low are Goa, Haryana, Jharkhand and Punjab along with the Northeastern and Hilly state of Arunachal Pradesh, and Manipur and the UTs of Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu, Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Lakshadweep and Puducherry.
Ministry of Panchayati Raj, after the gap of seven years, had entrusted the study on, “Field Assessment of the Status of Devolution of Powers and Resources to the PRIs (Panchayati Raj Institutions) to IIPA with the objectives of assessing the actual progress in implementing the operative core of decentralisation covering the transfer of functions, institutions, functionaries, and finances to Panchayati Raj Institutions, to examine the role of the Panchayats as institutions of local self-government with various committees at the local level and the role of the Panchayat in managing institutions at the local level and to arrive at an indicative ranking on the status of devolution based on the above parameters through field studies and through appraisal of state-level data sets.
