Assessing the Panchayat Raj Revolution
Three Decades of the 73rd Amendment
TR Raghunandan, Uma Mahadevan and Vijendra Rao.
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The 73rd Constitutional Amendment Act (73rd CAA) was enacted by Parliament in 1992 and became law on Apr 23, 1993. A three-tier Panchayat Raj System at the village, intermediate, and district levels is provided by the amendment. The genesis of the Act has it’s roots in the novel decentralisation initiative taken by the Karnataka Government under the leadership of Abdul Nazeer Sab.
The 73rd CAA’s primary goal was to democratically decentralise authority and resources from the Centre to locally elected officials in order to increase citizen participation in governance. Its goal relates to Article 40 of the constitution, which calls for the State to set up village panchayats and give them the requisite authority and powers to function as self-governing entities.
Three decades later it’s time to assess the performance of the 73rd CAA – what’s worked, what can be improved and what comes next.