States must devolve more functions and finances to local governments and build capacity before the next crisis hits the country. Analyse (200 Words)
Refer - Livemint
Enrich the answer from other sources, if the question demands.
IAS Parliament 5 years
KEY POINTS
· The lockdown has made it amply clear that India is too large, too complex and too diverse to be run by centralized decree. One of the core problems faced by the Indian republic—its highly centripetal structure—has come bubbling up to the surface during the covid crisis.
· One of India’s biggest mistakes is not creating sufficient local government capacity. This is a fundamental error of India’s founders, as the Constitution only provided for Union and state level governments and the creation of local governments was left to the states.
· The 73rd and 74th amendments did not mandate the transfer of governance functions—like the provision of education, health, sanitation and water—to them.
· Instead, the amendments listed the functions that ‘could’ be transferred and left it to the state legislature to actually devolve functions. There has been very little devolution of authority and functions in the last 27 years.
· Making matters worse, state executive authorities have proliferated to carry out these functions. A common example of this is the existence of dysfunctional state-level water boards, performing tasks that should be left to elected representatives of local governments who best understand local water problems and can be disciplined through the democratic process.
· The lack of finances for PRIs and ULBs. Local governments can either raise their own revenue through local taxes or receive intergovernmental transfers; the constitutional amendment recognized both but did not mandate either. The amendments left it to state legislatures—a choice that most states have not exercised.
· Municipal revenue accounts for a small share of gross domestic product (GDP) in India, hovering around 1% of GDP from 2007-08 to 2017-18.
· More than half of India’s municipal revenue comes from intergovernmental transfers, which brings uncertainty and lack of control over budgets. Consequently, ULBs usually don’t even spend their entire budget.
· A well-funded local government with clearly delineated functions is best positioned to fight a pandemic like covid. In its absence, India needs to rely on state and Union government measures, which tend to be of the one-size-fits-all sort, like a countrywide lockdown, instead of block-level curfews and similar targeted measures.
