Understanding Local Self Governance in Nagaland

October 10, 2017 26883 Views No Comment

7. Challenges and the ways forward

While it is good that the institution of Village Councils in Nagaland are build upon the good traditional values, practices and management systems of the Nagas there remain a number of challenges that will need to be overcome to ensure equitable and participatory governance. Given the present day context however, Village Councils as good as they may be do not provide space for women to participate in the process of decision making in any way. Women therefore, cannot aspire for roles or positions of leadership as they continue to be denied entry into such traditional Councils.

The concepts such as decentralization, devolution and de-concentration of power are often used freely, even interchangeably without conceptual clarity and understanding. It is therefore necessary to unbundle their meaning and identify the nuances of degrees of power and authority to which they relate to and be devolved to the community institutions.

While Village Councils have been given the responsibility to shoulder so many activities, their institutional capacity particularly in technical knowledge and power to legislate is still inherently very weak.

The transfer of power to Village Councils to initiate, fund and implement programmes meant for local development must be strengthened so as to enable the principle that public decisions should be made when possible, at the level of authority closest to the people. The fiscal domains of Village Councils remain almost negligible and are highly dependent on transferred funds and devolution is not linked to activity mapping

Village Councils must be given more clarity in terms of discretionary authority in the decision-making, management of local affairs and delivery of services to their communities particularly for administrative decentralization. Simply using them as agents for service delivery and monitoring of service delivery systems is not sufficient. For example, the DRDAs need to devolve powers and functions to the VDBs so that there is greater freedom to freely plan their activities according to their own requirements and development plans.

The critical questions therefore are what are the institutional arrangements in place for the transfer of power? and what is the relationship of the local self governance institutions to those at district and state level?

Finally, it is worth pondering whether local governance must be more than simply installing and giving development responsibilities to the local institutions. Devolution of power will have meaning only if accompanied by the empowerment of the communities – including women – to whom power is devolved. There is a need to bring about structural changes in units of governance traditional, as well as, the state levels to ensure that the spirit behind devolution of power is respected and there is actual transfer of power to local units of governance.

References

Chasie, Charles. 1999. The Naga Imbroglio. Kohima: Standard Printers & Publishers

Government of Nagaland, Dept of Economics and Statistics, Kohima.

Government of Nagaland, Dept of Information and Public Relations, Kohima.

Govt of Nagaland, Dept of Labour, Employment & Craftsmen Training, Kohima.

Govt of Nagaland, Planning Dept, Kohima.

R.S. Pandey. 2010 Communitisation: The Third Way of Governance, Concept Publishing Company Pvt. Ltd, New Delhi.