Sunday, September 11 2005 10:34 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Thiruvananthapuram: The much-hyped Peoples' Planning Campaign implemented by the 1996-2001 Left Democratic Front (LDF) Government in Kerala failed to achieve its goal of ensuring participation of local bodies in plan programmes, a recent study by the state Planning Board has found.

The goal that at least 35 to 40 per cent of plan programmes should comprise schemes formulated by local bodies within their areas of responsibilities was never achieved, the study, conducted through opinion survey and field survey of projects, pointed out.

The report, which was discussed by a full meeting of the Planning Board attended by Chief Minister Oommen Chandy recently, said instead of the stated objective of providing greater autonomy to local bodies in the planning process, the campaign did exactly the opposite.

The campaign diluted the role of elected officials of Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) by providing key roles in the planning process to political parties, activists and experts besides the State Government and Planning Board.

Bypassing the 1994 Kerala Panchayats and Municipalities Act, which provided for plans to be developed by local bodies, the People's Campaign introduced into the process a large number of people who were not elected PRI representatives, who identified local developmental problems and prioritized them into schemes.

High-level Guidance Council was also established to help the Campaign. The new framework was put in place to control Panchayati Raj to serve the goal of political mobilization in the interests of a particular political ideology, the report said.

The report says the campaign's emphasis was less on establishing sustainable institutional capacity in PRIs to carry out their constitutional and statutory responsibilities than of running a campaign.

A large number of seminars and conferences were held during the campaign at a huge cost to the exchequer, the durable benefits of which were unclear, the report said.

Gram Panchayats were relatively neglected in allocation of funds during the campaign, reflecting its lack of confidence in entrusting responsibilities to the grassroots level.

As against nearly 20 per cent of plan funds released to Gram Panchayats under the tenth plan, only about 13 per cent of funds was released to them under the ninth plan during the campaign.

The poor utilization of resources in the ninth plan was due to politicization of the process and non-official control of the planning process under the Campaign, the report says.