The Pros And Cons Of Decentralization In India

The application of RTI can act as a deterrent against misutilization of funds meant for rural development programmes. Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) aims to provide 100 days of guaranteed wage employment to every rural households18. Social Audit and pro-active disclosure are its prominent feature to ensure to transparency and accountability in the implementation act. However, If these tools are accompanied by active application of RTI,these can bridge the gap in the implementation of this historical legislation. Thus it can play a significant role in effective implementation of act and proper utilization of funds. Considering the advantages of RTI, it becomes clear that act need to be strengthened. The following

The people would have to actively participate and give in their input in order for these modifications to happen. These are some of the ways that the government reflects upon what the people want, hence how the Bill of Rights were given to us. However, without the involvement of the people, these changes would be difficult to be proposed and put into play. The contribution and the input of the citizen are accessible to those who choose to vote. Therefore, giving everyone (that satisfies the age and citizenship requirement) the opportunity to have in says in public political matters and issues that they want to be involved in. The power is by choice and passed onto the elected representative to exemplify the people’s issue to the hierarchy. Nevertheless, it is important that when electing a political leader, they must meet the criteria of what a good leader entails. The leader must be able to make sacrifices and put in place realistic development measures to improve living conditions and concerns. The people are not able to move forward as a nation unless there is a deliberate and concerted effort on the part of the

Democracy always has political participation; this means it involves, electing and rejecting leaders, influencing important decisions by voting, continuous influence on the decision – making process, direct participation in decision making and accountability of government to the citizens is a key notion. There are three notions in democracy and they are; direct, classical and participatory/deliberative. Direct democracy

There are some characteristics on which the system of local government is based which are as follows:

On balance, the evidence suggests that participation in politics is important for many reasons. In the 21st century it is increasingly important fr people to to participate and encourage change.

Democracy is based on two fundamental concepts. The first of which is political participation, which requires all citizens eligible

Decentralization transfers the authority and responsibility for public functions of central government to subordinate government organizations. Power is decentralized in the U.S. political system as it aims to give citizens more power in decision- making processes. It is also spread throughout the system rather than being concentrated to one government. The power of the government enhances the power of individuals and also make it easier for individuals to participate in the government. It also supports democratization by giving citizens more influence in the formulation and implementation of policies as it enhances transparency and accountability from the government. If there was a centralized federal government and were to make a big mistake by implementing a destructive policy, everybody would suffer greatly. Since the large centralized governments are a concentrated source of political power, there can be serious problems when individuals become corrupted or fail to do their jobs. As for the centralized city governments, if they were to become corrupted or fail to respond to local residents, it would be much easier, than national governments, to hold accountable due to their small size. Since the United States do have a decentralized government all governments have their limits to their power and is dispersed through their system. Powers from the governments are decentralized in the U.S. political system, in order to, compose the distribution of power amongst governments

The idea of fiscal decentralization injecting competition among local governments has an added advantage of making local officials pursue customer-driven investments which are more likely to meet expectations of local people and patronage of services. When local service delivery meet local people expectations, they tend to pay for services and even honor their tax obligations without much coercion because they even appear more willing to do so (Briscoe and Garn 1995, Litvack & Seddon, 1999). Additionally, if what is being supplied meets local demand and associated with the necessary openness or cost recovery, local people and groups have a higher tendency of demanding accountability, closely monitoring local government activities which will reinforce the corruption reduction theme discussed previously. Local monitoring and demand side of accountability help to reduce information asymmetries and corruption tendencies which may have potential to weaken both allocative efficiency and cost recovery. This demonstrates each of the themes are closely interrelated and not mutually exclusive.

Gram Panchayat is the organization of elected panchas by the members of Gram Sabha of the village. It is a self-government organization. The number of members in a Gram Panchayat depends upon the population of the village.

Papua New Guinea has undergone numerous government reforms with the aim of improving effective service delivery throughout the country. Since its independence in 1975 the country has achieved a lot in terms of development especially in the urban areas but not much has been achieved in the rural areas. Recently, the government has come up with the District Development Authority as a development tool in bringing funding closer to the people in the districts. The District Development Authority has decentralised administrative and financial powers to the district. However, there are districts that are yet to meet the minimum standards to be fully functional as a district administration. There are ongoing problems in the districts that needs attention by the government to consider before implementing its decentralisation policy. This paper will address the Organic Law on Provincial and Local Level Government which the DDA and Reform in Intergovernmental Financing was derived from (RIGFA). The issues that arose and made the government to decentralise the financial powers to the districts. The policy interventions of the main actors in the government especially the National Economic and Fiscal Commission. As a result of the DDA it may lead to some the policy implications that the districts may encounter in the near future. Conclude with some solutions to the current problems of the reform.

It will be simple to define political participation by using voter turnout in elections as the only yardstick. Hence, it is imperative for governments and for that matter the Ghanaian government to include citizens and get their interest in the affairs of the state. Thus political participation should not end at the ballot.

The reform activities united people and the attack on institutions like caste which hampered social unity created a sense of oneness in the people. But most of these reform movements had certain limitations. The questions to which they gave primacy concerned only small sections of Indian society. Some of them failed to emphasize or even recognize that colonial rule was inimical to the interests of the Indian people. Most of them worked within the framework of their respective communities in a way tended to promote identities based on religion or caste. Many of these limitations were sought to be overcome during the course of the national movement with which many social and religious reformers were closely associated. Indian nationalism

For overcoming the problem related to PDS one should give emphasis to universal public distribution system as in other state of India such as Kerala, Chhattisgarh and Tamil Nadu instead of targeted public distribution system (TPDS). The reason is, in TPDS one has to target the beneficiaries to find out who deserves BPL category and who deserves APL category and it is in the process of targeting where the biasness and corruption starts. But when the distribution system becomes universal means everyone is eligible corruption declines because it reduces the power of authorities to do corruption through colluding and divergence and leakage of foodgrains also decline manifold. Moreover, rich will be automatically excluded because he do not have enough times to come to the ration shop, stand in line and wait for his turn to purchase the grain but real poor can wait for its turn.

A unitary state is a state governed by a single power that is the central government and other administrative divisions follow the powers delegated by the central government. Some of the unitary features of the Indian constitution are single citizenship, a strong centre, single constitution for union and the states, centre having the power to change the name and boundaries of the states, single unified judiciary to function as unitary government during the emergencies, common all India services, appointment of the governor by the president, appointment of the high court judges by the president, One election commission, flexible constitution, special power of the centre to make laws over state list. States are financially dependent on centre.

At least, now alert citizens can slow down corrupt officers and politicians.Third, Indian politics will hopefully mature as more information passes through the hands of political rivals, police, judiciary, media and the people. The Act will reveal who is exploiting whom and how one can get justice for the poor and the needy. The judiciary will now have better data to decide against the corrupt.That sounds so far flung, doesn't it? Let us start from the district level. If the road leading to your town is washed out in the first rains of the season, you might like to ask who was given the contract to build that road, at what price and what the terms and conditions were.Was the contractor related to a Member of Parliament or a member of legislative assembly in that area? During the building of that road, did any government officer object to any deficiency or malpractice? Was there any communication in this regard? The concerned departments will have to come up with answers in the stipulated period.