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 Decentralisation in Kerala: Problems and Prospects
 K Rajasekharan Kerala Institute of Local Administration Mulagunnathukavu Kavu, Thrissur
Introduction
Decentralisation is a very complex activity of devolution of political, administrative andfiscal responsibilities to the local elected governments. Decentralisation aims atestablishing accountable, efficient, accessible and transparent local governance.Consolidation of major problems arising out during those changes is the main theme of this paper.Kerala, the tiny state in the southernmost part of India, has the fertile preconditions suchas traditional community life, land reforms, high literacy & education, qualitative healthindicators, powerful grassroots institutions, vibrating civil society and sharp politicalaffinities among people, for creating vibrant local government institutions. Indecentralisation, the State had a long history of half-hearted reforms characterised bypartial successes and blatant reversals right from its creation in 1957. Kerala, withappreciative development indicators comparable to developed countries, has beenexperimenting with decentralisation and participatory local democracy, ultimately aimedat realization of the constitutional goal of establishing genuine "institutions of local self government" since the enactment of Kerala Panchayat Raj Act & The KeralaMunicipality Act in the year 1994.Decentralisation process necessitates a large number of changes to be made in thepolitical process, administrative structure, distribution of powers and responsibilities,allocation of resources, management of human resources and in the degree of autonomyin each tier of government.
Brief history of decentralisation in Kerala.
The enactment of Kerala Panchayat Raj Act & The Kerala Municipality Act in the year1994, in tune with the constitutional changes made in 1993, was the first step in therecent history of decentralisation in Kerala and the acts incorporated the bare minimummandatory constitutional requirement. The act enlisted both mandatory and sectoralresponsibilities and institutional structures of the local government system in Kerala.The functional areas of local governments are made distinctly clearer by transferring anumber of institutions and staff positions to the local governments, in September 1995,following the principle ‘work and worker going together’. With this transfer, localgovernments in Kerala got the services of fairly senior professional officers on Health,Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, Rural Development, Social Welfare, Scheduled CasteDevelopment, Education etc. They are designated ex-officio secretaries with all powersand responsibilities of the secretary, in their sector.The State budget of Government of Kerala, presented in February 1996 was the nextmilestone in the history of decentralisation in the state, which set apart a small amount of 1
 
untied funds to draw local plan projects by the local governments. This paved way forlegislative approval of resource allocation to local governments through a very uniquebudgetary process.The process of decentralisation was pushed further forward in 1996 by introducing theparticipatory bottom-up planning process in a campaign mode namely People’s PlanCampaign (PPC). The Campaign initiated by the transfer of one-third plan resources of the State to the local governments in the ninth five-year plan, really infused life intodecentralisation in the State. "The campaign had succeeded in deepening the process of decentralisation, bringing about qualitative changes in planning and implementation andaltering of the mindset about participatory development." (Government of Kerala: 1999)The availability of enormous resources entitled the local governments to realise theirfunctional responsibilities assigned by the new legislation. As well, the transfer of a lot of responsibilities and funds to local governments mounted pressure on the StateGovernment to ensure that the responsibilities are carried out effectively and funds areutilized properly. Because of the heavy transfer of funds, it has become the responsibilityof the State Government to ensure that decentralisation works well.Kerala adopted a ‘bing bang‘ approach towards decentralisation, in ‘reversal’
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of thetraditional approaches to transfer funds, functions and functionaries to local governmentsin one go and later made attempts to build up the capacity of the local governments toundertake the transferred tasks.The Peoples Plan Campaign, consisted of a series of phases,
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had been taken as an entrypoint in achieving a high degree of decentralisation in the State. The campaign couldestablish adhoc systems and procedures, which were later, corrected or were attempted tocorrect on trial and error basis. The campaign could succeed in setting the agenda of decentralisation and push its pace to a great extent.The decentralisation efforts were expected to move from an experimentation, correctiveand consolidation phase to an institutional phase. But the campaign could not go muchahead in transforming the existing administrative operating systems of local governmentsto the needs of decentralisation, with local political process, good local financialmanagement, excellent procurement system and meaningful relation between elected andappointed functionaries. The interim systems strenuously made during the campaigncould not be institutionalised or made sustainable. The expectation of the campaign was
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The ‘reversals’ include giving responsibility and then building capacity, giving powers and then creatingprocedures and systems and giving funds and then setting up accountability mechanism.
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The stages followed in the People’s Planning Campaign are identification of development needs in thegramasabha, preparation of a development report by task forces (renamed now as working groups)constituted by the local bodies, conduct of a development seminar for strategy setting, projectisation of theneeds contained in the development report by the task forces(working groups , plan finalisation by the localbody, plan vetting by the expert groups, plan approval by the DPC and implementation by beneficiarygroups, agencies or functionaries of local bodies
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that it would accelerate economic growth and create new model of growth with equity inKerala.
 
(Thomas Isaac T M and Richard W Franke 2000)
 
The amendment made to the Kerala Panchayat Raj & Municipality Acts in 1999,consequent to the recommendation of the Committee on Decentralisation of Powers (SenCommittee), had transformed the acts proactive to the needs of decentralisation to a verygreat extend. The recent initiative to institutionalise the good features of learning frompeoples plan campaign, in the ongoing tenth five-year planning process was a goodbeginning, but the institutionalization process had left much to be desired.Decentralisation in Kerala, as in other countries is proven to be a very difficult processfor three obvious reasons. The most obvious reason is that many powerful forcesinfluencing the State have little interest in decentralisation. The second is that there ismuch institutional inertia to overcome. The third is that even when state’s elites committhemselves to decentralistion, the task of institutional building such as enacting new lawsand regulations, redeploying personnel, rechanneling personnel, building up localadministrative capacities etc. is herculean. But Kerala has a long and celebrated history of social mobilization and a dense and vibrant civil society, which make the task slightlyeasier than everywhere else. (Heller, Patrick 2000:7)In spite of many debilitating factors, the decentralisation process in Kerala has becomealmost irreversible and concrete steps are being made to institutionalise the decentralisedgovernance in the State. (Government of Kerala 2003)
 
But weather decentralisation will deliver good or bad is still a debating question. On theone hand, there has been a growing criticism that in the name of decentralisation,democratically elected governments are urged to abandon social welfare responsibilitiesand local communities are urged to take up more responsibilities, forcibly dictated byundemocratic international lending agencies. On the other hand, decentralisation can be away to achieve more quality in the content of democracy.Kerala shows that democratic decentralisation strongly buttressed by state support can bean effective strategy for reducing inequality in living standards. (Franke, Richard W andBarbara H Chasin 2000)
Major problemsRefining legislative framework.
Decentralisation in Kerala is a process launched by legislative enactments and framing of Kerala Panchayat Raj Act & The Kerala Municipality Act and associated rules inaccordance with the constitutional amendment and not by any political or socialmovement. Continuous refinement of legislative framework, in tune with the discerniblepolitical reality, is essential for promoting decentralisation. The contradictions, lack of clarity, possibility of multiple interpretations, critical grey areas of silence etc. in theprovisions of the statutes, rules and orders, make the decentralisation initiatives veryslow, cumbersome or difficult.3
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