[This is a reproduction of my article published in Panchayati Raj Update, Vol.XVII, No.10, October 2011, Institute of Social Sciences, New Delhi]
What does the phenomenal increase in urban population in the last decade mean? Do the Panchayats have anything to do with that? In an insightful analysis of the Census 2011 figures on migration, P. Sainath (The Hindu, 26 September 2011) points out the difference between the growth in rural and urban population over the last three decades. The rural population increased from 628.7 million in 1991 to 742.5 million in 2001 and further to 833.1 million in 2011. Whereas the urban population increased from 217.6 million in 1991 to 286.1 million in 2001 and further to 377.1 million in 2011. But if we carefully look at the differences between these figures, we would interestingly find that the rural population actually decreased from 113.8 million in 2001 to 90.6 million in 2011 and the urban population increased from 68.5 million in 2001 to 91.0 million in 2011. This indeed points to an alarming situation in the country side. The striking increase in urban population during the last decade could possibly be due to migration, among other reasons, as the Census 2011 cites. Loss of livelihoods, collapse of agriculture and poverty would perhaps be the major factors influencing distressed people’s decision to migrate to urban centres in search of livelihood.
If we look at the incidence of chronic poverty per se, it seems to be very high among unorganised labourers and marginalised cultivators in the rural areas. The National Commission for Enterprises in Unorganised Sector set up by the Government of India in 2004 found that roughly 92 percent of India’s total workforce was engaged in informal/unorganised sector and most of them remained poor with an average per capita consumption of less than Rs. 20 a day. To be specific, the Commission found that 836 million people forming three-fourth of India’s population were poor and vulnerable including those 6.4 percent of people falling under the category of extremely poor. The Economic Survey 2010-11 citing the 64th round National Sample Survey data suggests that the incidence of unemployment on a current daily basis increased from 7.31 per cent in 1999-2000 to 8.28 percent in 2004-05 with rural unemployment growing higher than the urban. A large chunk of people are living under chronic poverty as a result of either unemployment or loss of livelihoods in rural areas which eventually force them to migrate. Where do these poor unemployed vulnerable people ultimately go? Obviously, they land up in urban centres where their life is no less than what they experience in their respective rural places as some of them become part of urban slums and live under inhuman conditions. Probably this tendency explains the phenomenal growth of population in urban areas in the last decade.
Now we need to ask why the programmes of the union and state governments aimed at ameliorating rural and urban poverty have not been effective? The answer could possibly be due to the fact that the development models and the policies were dictated by our rulers from the top without taking the local needs and social realities fully into account. Does it mean that the people were left with no alternatives at all? No, we did have and still have the option to evolve alternative models of development and governance. The 73rd and 74th amendment to the Constitution tried to do that by decentralising the power structure and by putting the power in the hands of people to decide their own fate. The Panchayati Raj Act, 1992 distinctly empowers the State to devolve funds, functions and functionaries to local government institutions (PRIs) thereby enabling them to draw their own development plans that are suitable to their local needs. Although the implementation of the same has not been very impressive in most of the States, there is still hope that the decentralised governance would empower and facilitate PRIs to promote economic activities and generate employment opportunities at local level which would surely alleviate rural poverty and check distress migration.
If panchayats are empowered, as per the Panchayat Raj Act, with funds, functions, and functionaries to create their own economic activities according to their local needs, the rural poverty and distress migration can be arrested at the local level itself. Migration, otherwise, will continue on a large scale in the times to come. If timely action is not taken both rural and urban areas will be in great miseries. The urban centres will become much more miserable as there will be severe burden on civic amenities whereas rural areas will suffer due to shortage of workforce for the farming, agricultural and related activities that form the basis of rural economy. It has been observed ever since the implementation of MGNREGA that those labourers available during sowing and harvesting seasons in rural areas were not available as they were engaged in MGNREGA activities. If better wages and social security are the major concerns of the available workforce that MGNREGA promises to provide, the activities under this programme can very well be merged with the activities of PRIs thereby institutionalising the workforce at the grassroots level with protected wages and social security measures. It needs to be emphasized that it is vital at this juncture for the performing Panchayats to relook at their current style of functioning and think beyond their traditional role to evolve a mechanism that would facilitate the local governance truly participatory, community oriented and collective.
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