Local Government In India

Local Government

In the world of today, local government is an integral part of the four-tier system of government. At the apex is the supranational agency like the United Nations which is purely voluntary in character and which lays down a code of conduct and behaviour in regard to relations between the sovereign members. This agency does not interfere in the internal affairs of its members and its actions cannot infringe members’ sovereign rights. The second tier comprises individual national governments functioning in accordance with their national constitutions within their national borders.

The constituent units which are called states or provinces form the third tier. The fourth and bottom tier is the local government which is created by national and state enactments and functions within a limited jurisdiction as provided by various statutes. A local government may be described as government by popularly elected bodies charged with administrative and executive duties in matters concerning the inhabitants of a particular district or place and vested with powers to make bye-laws for their guidance. – Local government has been defined from various angles.

It has been defined as “an authority to determine and execute measures within the restricted area inside and smaller than the whole state. A more appropriate definition of local government is “the administration of a locality, a village, a town, a city or any other area smaller than the State by a body representing local inhabitants, possessing a fairly large amount of autonomy, raising at least a part of its revenue through local taxation and spending its income on services which are regarded as local and, therefore, as distinct from State and Central services.” Five features thus characterise a system of local-self government and these are a local body, local inhabitants electing and ultimately controlling that body, the autonomy of that body in the sense of freedom from the control of higher authorities within at least a limited sphere, a recognition of the distinction between local and non-local services and local taxation.

  1. This concept of local self-government is broad as applicable to the ancient past as to the present. :
  2. The essential characteristics of a local government area, firstly, its statutory status :
  3. secondly, its power to raise finance by taxation in the area under its jurisdiction;
  4. thirdly, participation of the local community in decision-making in specified subjects and their administration;
  5. fourthly, the freedom to act independently of Central Control and lastly, its general-purpose, in contrast to the single-purpose character.

The importance of local government lies in sustaining democracy. If democracy has to function properly, as many citizens as possible, should be encouraged and provided with opportunities to take a continuing interest in its activities and problems.

In a democracy, people have to work with great patience and perseverance. In the long run, we may find that the progress achieved under such democratic methods is more firm and more solid than under a totalitarian setup. People should have faith in democracy to become capable of achieving progress. People’s faith in democracy is like reposing faith in themselves. Since faith sustains people’s patience, people can acquire this faith more easily through the experience of working in democratic institutions.

Our first Prime Minister, Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru while inaugurating the first Local Self Government Ministers Conference in 1948, had said that I “Local Self Government is and must be the basis of any true system of democracy. We have got rather into the habit of thinking democracy at the top and not so much below. may not be a success unless you build on its foundation from below.”

Local Government In India

The concept of local government is well known in India since the old days. Throughout the moon, some traces of village panchayats are found in the form of village communities. Empires have been built and destroyed by invaders but the villages have retained their identities. Vago’s tan always had a headman as a government representative. The village was an economic as well as administrative unit at the grassroots level. During the Mughal and British period, rulers confined their rule to cities and towns and village institutions started declining. The Britishers first in 1687 crated Madras Corporation but it did not survive long. The Charter Act of 1793 was the first statutory law for municipal administration; further many resolutions were passed to strengthen municipal administration. Prominent among them were Lord Ripon’s Resolution of 1882, the Royal Commission on Decentralisation Report, 1909, the Government of India Act, 1919 and the Government of India Act, 1935, etc. After Independence, several developments have taken place in the field of local Self Government in India which comprises two broad categories; rural and urban namely Panchayati Raj and the Municipal government. Concept of Panchayati Raj: Mahatma Gandhi was well aware of the Indian society and wanted village self-sufficiency (Gram Swaraj) to be the aim of independent India but the Chairman of the Constitution drafting Committee B.R. Ambedkar was against village Panchayats and only lip service was paid to the concept of Village Panchayats in the draft Constitution. When Gandhiji came to know this, he insisted for its inclusion in the Constitution. As a result, the provision of village Panchayats was included in the Directive Principles of State Policy in Article 40 which mentioned that ‘the State shall take steps to organise village Panchayats and endow them with such powers and authority as may be necessary to enable them to function as units of self-government.’

Here are the notes for Balwanthrai Mehta Committee And S V K Rao Committee.

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