A backbone for India's grassroots democracy

Hindustan Times

6 hours ago

India's democracy draws its real strength from the ground up — from the panchayats and urban local bodies that are constitutionally recognised as the third tier of governance. The 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments laid down the vision of self-governing villages and towns, backed by decentralised planning and execution. Yet, decades later, this vision still lacks a functioning administrative structure to support local elected bodies in delivering development effectively. The 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments laid down the vision of self-governing villages and towns, backed by decentralised planning and execution. (HT Photo)
Across the country today, gram panchayats (GPs) are implementing major national schemes like MGNREGA, Swachh Bharat Mission, Jal Jeevan Mission, PM Awas Yojana-Gramin, and the National Rural Livelihoods Mission. Together, these account for public expenditure worth several lakh crore rupees annually. Much of it flows through panchayats — institutions that, shockingly, operate with minimal to no professional staff. Most GPs have no technical assistant, no accountant, no civil engineer, and no planning support.
The outcome is predictable. Projects suffer from poor design and shoddy execution. Fund utilisation remains weak. Citizens feel unheard and unserved. And elected local representatives are left disillusioned, blamed for outcomes they were never truly empowered to shape. An effort was made in 2010 to rectify this by allowing key functionaries to be hired within the MGNREGA funding, but this fell by the wayside.
This structural gap in the governance architecture must be addressed. India needs to create a fit-for-purpose bureaucratic framework at the panchayat level — a core team of professionals anchored at each GP, working under the supervision of the elected sarpanch and accountable in day-to-day matters to ward panchs. The proposed team would include a panchayat executive officer trained in rural administration, a technical assistant with engineering qualifications, a gram sachiv to manage accounts and correspondence, and a data entry operator to enable digital governance.
This team would function as the local institutional backbone — capable of drawing up plans, supervising works, maintaining records, enabling audits, and acting as a bridge between the citizenry and the state. It is not an expansion of bureaucracy, but a restoration of basic governance where it has long been absent.
Understandably, the scale of such an initiative — covering over 2.6 lakh panchayats — raises questions about affordability. But here lies a crucial point: India is already spending heavily on panchayat-based schemes. What it lacks is the institutional mechanism to ensure that money translates into outcomes. The solution does not require fresh allocations, but a smarter reallocation of resources.
A small portion — around 1.5% — of the annual outlays of major panchayat-linked schemes could be pooled and redirected to create a dedicated fund under the ministry of panchayati raj. This fund, the panchayat administrative support for programme delivery (PASPD), would be used to finance the core administrative teams at the GP level. The ministry of finance should deduct this amount pro-rata from scheme allocations and transfer it directly to this new budget head.
However, the reform must be shielded from the chronic problem of state-level delays and diversions. Funds released by the Centre often languish in state treasuries. To prevent this, the Finance Commission must recommend enforceable safeguards. States must be mandated to release PASPD funds to panchayats within 15 working days. Follow-up instalments should be linked to performance, fund usage, and transparency. A publicly accessible dashboard should track fund flows, and ward panchs should be empowered to verify work done and flag lapses. This reform is both pragmatic and transformative. It addresses the glaring contradiction of expecting high-quality development delivery from institutions that lack even a basic professional team. It enhances citizen trust in local governance, empowers elected representatives with execution capacity, and improves value for money for taxpayers.
The 16th Finance Commission now has an opportunity and a constitutional obligation to make this happen. Articles 243-I and 243-Y empower it to recommend measures to augment the Consolidated Fund of the States to support panchayats and urban local bodies. These recommendations should include conditional fiscal transfers for administrative strengthening. In the end, this is a democratic correction. By investing in a professional support structure at the grassroots, India can move from tokenism to transformation — from political devolution to functional empowerment.
Arvind Mayaram, a former Union finance secretary, is chairman, Institute of Development Studies Jaipur. The views expressed are personal.