Can decentralisation make local administration more accountable?

There is little evidence that decentralisation promotes poverty reduction. Often it simply empowers local elites to capture public resources. India is committed to decentralisation and provides an important case for understanding how governments need to be pro-active if this has to make local governance more accountable.

An article fromthe University of Guelph, Canada and Overseas Development Institute, UK based on research conducted between 2001 –2002, analyses the relationship between local government and local people in theIndian states of Andhra Pradesh (AP) and Madhya Pradesh (MP). AP may not have devolvedpower to the extent that supporters of decentralisation would have liked, but itspopulist approach to poverty reduction has empowered poor people in ways thatthe more ambitious decentralisation agenda in MP has failed to do.

Centralgovernments can play an important role in improving local governance. In 1993constitutional reforms recognised the authority of district, sub-district andvillage level bodies. India’s 73rd Constitutional Amendment Act set outnew responsibilities for locally-elected representatives. Critics argue that theresulting decentralisation reforms have been superficial and that distributionof power and resources in rural areas remains dependenton inequalities created by caste, religion, class and gender.

Upper castesremain dominant in MP despite institutional reforms aimed to enhance the powerof the Gram Sabha (the village assembly) and theaccountability of the Gram Panchayat (the villagecouncil). In AP by contrast, traditionally marginalised castes have challengedthe historical dominance of land-owning castes. However, the state governmenthas effectively by-passed locally elected institutions and used the non-electedbureaucracy to deliver poverty programmes.

The research showsthat:

• Aprogramme to subsidise rice has been central to AP’s political strategy ofenhancing and maintaining electoral support among women, scheduled castes andpoor households.
• TheDWCRA (Development of Women and Children in Rural Areas) - a low interestmicrocredit programme for poor women in rural areas has been a key policymechanism in AP.
• In MP,the marginalisation of the Gram Sabha was directlythe result of the government’s failure to challenge the entrenched authority ofthe village chief (Sarpanch): often villagers areunaware of meetings of their Gram Sabha.
• Theintermediate level of administration between the village and the district in MP,which is much larger than in AP, has failed to make relationships betweenvillagers and bureaucrats more formal and predictable.
• The Sarpanch and line department officials are the only meansby which poor people can obtain information about state-provided benefits andaccess them.

The comparisonbetween Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh provides a number of insights:

• Local governancecan be influenced by administrations that are willing and able to undermine theautonomy of local government in order to obtain poor people’s votes.
• Governmentsshould be wary of devolving political powers and control of electoral processesto institutions dominated by local elites.
• Accountabilitycan be shaped by interpersonal relationships and information flows between centrallyappointed non-elected officials and poor people in rural areas – as opposed tothe formal mechanisms of elections and village assemblies.

Note: Thisresearch was done before the ruling governments in MP and AP were voted out ofpower in 2003 and 2004. This distinction is important because the newgovernments (especially in MP) have changed their policy on decentralisation.