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Decentralized Planning for development of Bangaru Telangana
Highlights
In order to fulfill the dreams and aspirations of the people of Telangana, there is an imperative need to change the paradigm of the planning process so as to reflect the felt needs of the people in the policies and programmes. Towards this end, democratic decentralisation was considered an effective strategy that gave rise to the new initiative under nomenclature “Mana Vooru Mana Pranalika” (Our Village - Our Plan).
Mana Vooru Mana Pranalika
In order to fulfill the dreams and aspirations of the people of Telangana, there is an imperative need to change the paradigm of the planning process so as to reflect the felt needs of the people in the policies and programmes. Towards this end, democratic decentralisation was considered an effective strategy that gave rise to the new initiative under nomenclature “Mana Vooru Mana Pranalika” (Our Village - Our Plan).
Through this an endeavour was made to shift the existing top down bureaucratic model of planning to a more democratic “bottom-up model”, through people’s participation in the planning process. This is also in tune with the principles stipulated under the 73rd amendment of the Constitution of India to transfer funds, functions and functionaries to the Gram panchayats and Local Bodies.
The Process
The concept of “Mana Vooru Mana Pranalika” involved identification and prioritisation of works to be tak- en up at the village level while focusing on human development and key sectors such as Health, Education, Agriculture and Land use plan and basic Infrastructure i.e., safe drinking water, roads, drainages and sanita- tion as wells as resource mobilisation at Gram Panchayat level. Participation of at least 10% of the village population was made mandatory in Grama Sabhas to finalise village Plans.
The concept was discussed during the workshop on “Reinventing Telangana” held on the 7th July 2014, which was addressed by the Hon’ble Chief Minister and attended by all Secretaries, Heads of Departments, District Collectors, and Joint Collectors of the State. In this workshop training schedule for field function arises at different levels was drawn up. Accordingly the training of trainers (District Resource Persons) was conducted at AP Academy of Rural Development on 9thJuly 2014. In turn, the District Resource Persons trained the Mandal Resource Persons on 11th July 2014 at the respective District Head Quarters. Village Re- source Persons were identified for each of the Gram Panchayats who were trained by the Mandal Resource Persons on the 12th of July 2014.
The Programme was organised throughout the State in 3 Phases and Gram Panchayat plans were prepared for each of the village between 13th and 18th July 2014. This was followed by meetings of the Mandal Pari- shads for formulation of mandal level plans during 19th to 23rd July 2014. Finally, the District Plans were prepared in the meetings of Zilla Parishads conducted with the people’s representatives at the district level during 24th to 28th July 2014, duly consolidating the village, mandal and District Plans, details of which were incorporated in a web-portal separately by the Centre for Good Governance (CGG). During the preparation of plans at various levels, a sample process evaluation was conducted by the Planning department through the Council for Social Development (CSD).
The Out Come
The maiden attempt made by the Government of Telangana to involve people in the Planning process aroused tremendous public response throughout the state. Under this process, micro level plans were pre- pared for 8685 Grama Panchayats, 443 Mandals and 9 Zilla Parishads. While the village plans identified the felt needs of the local people with total outlay of Rs.20094 crores, at the mandal level shelf of projects were prepared to the total outlay of Rs.13709 crores. In addition to this district plans were identified works to be taken up in a phased manner with the total outlay of Rs.20503 crores. In all, 71876 works were identified under the “Mana Vooru Mana Pranalika” with the total outlay of Rs.54305 crores, covering all the three tiers of Panchayati Raj Institutions.
Priorities
The main aim of the “Mana Vooru Mana Pranalika” programme was to identify the felt needs of the local people and in turn prioritise the works to be taken up, by dovetailing the same with existing schemes under various sectors. It is interesting to note that the top three priorities at the Grama Panchayat level accounted for CC road works worth Rs. 6578.26 crores, followed by drainage works worth Rs. 2846.29 crores and over- head tank works with an outlay of Rs. 874.16 crores. Similarly the top three priorities were identified in the mandal level, pertaining to Irrigation works with an outlay of Rs.1476.31 crores, followed by bridge works worth Rs.797.92 crores works and pipeline works worth Rs.638.52 crores. In contrast, the District Plans were finalised at the Zilla Parishad level accorded priority to irrigation works worth Rs. 899.12 crores, followed by BT Road works worth Rs. 338.68 crores, and Health related works with an outlay of Rs. 208.74 crores .
“Mana Vooru Mana Pranalika” is a humble beginning made by the Telangana state to put the people at the centre of the planning process and the exercise needs to be sustained to achieve the real goals of democratic decentralisation. There is also a need to ensure that the works prioritised for short, medium and long term periods are included in the projects /works to be taken up by the field agencies of the line departments. There is also need to sensitise the functionaries at different levels to accord topmost priority to the felt needs of the people, while taking up the works.
G.Rajendera Kumar
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