Strengthening Panchayati Raj Institutions Executive Summary in Odisha
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Legal Capacity—Two significant issues identified here are: –
Need for modifications to existing contiguous acts impinging on the PR canvas to ensure smooth devolution of powers.
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Non-clarity on roles, responsibilities, and powers of Standing Committees (SCs) and chairpersons of SCs vis-a-vis body incorporates and presidents of body incorporates.
Policy Capacity—Seven key bottlenecks here are: – GoI’s non-convergent design of programmes/schemes. – Non-convergent implementation of PRI-CB&T at the state level. – Non-optimal planning of PRI-CB&T by the state PRD/SIRD. – Non-incentivized, non-mandatory environment for PRI-CB&T users. – SIRD to be developed as the nodal PRI-CB&T institution in the state so its strengthening needs to be addressed. – Limited ICT usage for PRI-CB&T. – Non-observance of devolved functions and procedures.
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Strategic Capacity—The key issue identified here,which forms a crucial bottleneck is the focus only on output oriented training as opposed to holistic Capacity Development (CD). The training is nondifferential (non-segmented for differing entitlement holders), mainly information and knowledge providing, has very limited use of adult and experiential learning approaches, almost no use of ICT, and a weak M&E system.
• Institutional Capacity—The key issues identified here are: –
Resource starved SIRD and ETCs—staff, experts, advisors, and civil society actors.
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SIRD’s non-autonomy.
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Systems Capacity—The key issue identified here is of weak systems and no databases. This is based on an analysis of 14 SIRD/state PRD systems.
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Infrastructure Capacity—The key issue identified here is paucity of infrastructure, including physical, IT/ICT, and a limited number of ETCs.
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Funds—Funds are not a constraint at present. However, with the proposed strengthening and scalingup, fund requirements will shoot up to several times the current levels.
Recommendations The recommendations include strengthening all capacities of the Odisha State PRD/SIRD including legal, policy, strategy, institutional, systems, infrastructure, and financial to transform the concept of training for holistic CD for PRIs. The Report also identifies some policy issues, which need to be addressed by MoPR. 3