Sec.(o) the State Legislature shall endeavour to follow the pattern of the Sixth Schedule to the Constitution while designing the administrative arrangements in the Panchayats at district levels in the Scheduled Areas. The administrative arrangement at the district level shall be on the pattern of the powers 34 (legislative, judicial and executive powers) and structure of the District Councils. This also means the reorganization of the administrative divisions into districts so as to ensure that all the habitations in the Scheduled Area is organized into districts as far as possible. It would also require the transfer of powers as provided in Sixth Schedule to the Constitution to the District Councils in Fifth Schedule Area. In other words PESA envisages that the Fifth Schedule Areas adopt the Sixth Schedule pattern in addition for an autonomous existence. Continuance of existing laws on panchayats: Sec.5. Notwithstanding anything in Part IX of the Constitution with exceptions and modifications made by this Act, any provision of any law relating to Panchayats in force in the Scheduled Areas, immediately before the date on which this Act receives the assent of the President, which is inconsistent with the provisions of Part IX with such exceptions and modifications shall continue to be in force until amended or repealed by a competent Legislature or other competent authority or until the expiration of one year from the date on which this Act receives the assent of the President; Provided that all the Panchayats existing immediately before such date shall continue till the expiration of their duration unless sooner dissolved by a resolution passed to that effect by the Legislative Assembly of that State or, in the case of a State having Legislative Council, by each House of the Legislature of that State. This provision requires that all the States having Scheduled Area shall adopt PESA within a year of it coming into force; if not adopted within a year, all provisions in the State legislations that are inconsistent with the provisions of PESA shall stand null and void; and all the Panchayats that exist at the time of the lapse of one year or at the time of suitable state legislations incorporating the provisions of PESA coming into force, may either be dissolved or allowed to complete its term after which the new provisions shall come into force and operation. PESA makes the much neglected Directive Principle of State Policy about establishment of a virtual 'Village Republic' as envisaged in Article 40 to become mandatory for Scheduled Areas. The tribal peoples, unfamiliar with the formal system, who were forced under law to approach some authority or the other of an alien ‘outside’ their world, with PESA makes the familiar setting of the open assembly of the village formally specified as Gram Sabha to become the centre of governance.
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Their powers cover matters such as primary schools, markets, dispensaries, ferries, cattle ponds, roads, fisheries, road transport and water-ways etc.
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