Panchayati Raj and environmental management

Abstract

The 73rd Constitution Amendment Act, making Panchayats at three levels ‘Institutions of Self-government’ has also provided a list of subjects to be brought under the Panchayats. Among the 29 subjects mentioned in the Eleventh Schedule, land improvement, land consolidation, soil conservation, water management, social forestry, minor forest produce, non-conventional energy sources, sanitation, and maintenance of assets, are subjects related to environmental management.

In the fifty years after Independence there was a statutary vacuum at the local level for planning and implementing programmes which protect the life and property of the people and improve their quality of life. The idea was that whatever the people's needs were, they could be dealt with from the top, the relics of an imperial structure, through the departments and their officials. Now we know that this approach has never been sensitive to local necessities.

If we accept Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) as the defacto third tier of governance, all administrative, planning and implementation activities should converge at the district level from the Gram Sabhas, Village Panchayats and Block Samitis. The Constitution has made provisions for this in Article 243. People's representatives taking decisions in tandem with the experts, is the ideal situation to protect the environment and ecological balance.