Saturday, 26 January 2019

Denial of Local Self Government in Tamil Nadu


The very root of democracy in Tamil Nadu have been affected due to the irresponsible acts of the state of Tamil Nadu by not conducting the Panchayat and Municipal elections for more than two years. The reason being the judgment of the Madras High Court canceling the election in the year 2016 because of illegalities on the part of the government in the announcement of the election and delimitation of constituencies. Since then in the name of delimiting the constituencies as per Census 2011, the Government of Tamil Nadu is kept on delaying the election. Even the court’s repeated warning did not elicit any positive response on the side of the government for all these days. For every six months, the government keeps on extending the special powers given to executive authorities to govern panchayats and municipalities by passing a resolution to that extent on the floor of the assembly. Thereby justified their acts by showing the authority of the Tamil Nadu State Assembly to deny Local Self Government to citizens of Tamil Nadu.

Villages are most affected due to the absence of elected representatives
More than 20000 villages in Tamil Nadu have been affected due to the absence of the elected representative since there is nobody to raise voice for their respective villages. Although the Government had appointed special officers to look after the villages as an alternative to the elected representatives, there are not efficient to even understand the local problems of the villages. They mostly administers the village panchayat from their office. After all, how can we expect the executive authority to do the duty of the legislative authority efficiently?  
These so called special officers are sanctioning the funds of the Village Panchayat and Town Panchayat even without understanding the problems of the region and as a result public funds get wasted unnecessarily without solving the problems of the people. Public funds are getting wasted by constructing check dams at a place where check dams are not required at all, ponds are being dug at a place, where there is already Tank (Eri), is existing. Such things are happening almost in all villages. Besides this the public servants like Village Administrative Officers are also demanding bribes from the rural poor even to do their basic duties like issuing Patta, Adangal, Birth Certificate, etc  And there is nobody (elected representative) to question these arbitrary actions of the executive authorities.

If there is a local elected representative, he or she could have at least done work as per the local needs and also the executive authorities (public servants) would have acted responsibly to some extent at the least. But the Government of Tamil Nadu successfully suppressed the voice of the rural poor for more than two years by not conducting the Panchayat Elections and Municipal Elections. By this action on the part of the Government, the mandate of the 73rd and 74th Amendment of the Constitution of India has been dishonoured.

As per recent statement of government in the High Court of Madras, delimitation work has been completed and promised that election would be announced by the month of May 2019. Hope, this time the Government of Tamil Nadu and Election Commission will fulfill its promise to give life to the Local Self Government. I hope the voice of rural citizens would be once again heard through Panchayats and Municipalities soon as per the mandate of the Indian Constitution.   
Jai Hind!!!

2 comments:

  1. Hi Mr Prabhu.
    Mahatma Gandhi said :-"The future of India lies in its villages"

    On OUR 70th Republic Day, by not conducting, or rather stalling, grassroot level election for more than 2 years, Tamil Nadu Govt is letting the grass grow under it's feet.

    Shrugging off its Constitutional responsibility, TN Govt is stalling for time to conduct the election for the reasons best known to it.

    Without there being Elected Representatives, To whom People would turn to air their grievances or get their grievances redressed ?

    It's ‘a gross dereliction of duty' by TN Govt running the State without having elected representatives at grassroot level..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes Manikandan. Absolute gross dereliction of duty on the part of TN Govt.

      Delete

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