Functional Devolution to Rural Local Bodies in Four States

The Eleventh Schedule added to the Constitution by the 73rd amendment lists 29 functions devolvable by states to rural local bodies. States were free to set the speed and design of their approach to decentralisation under the general framework of the Constitutional mandate. Fourteen years on, a quantitative measure is attempted in this paper of the extent to which functional transfers have been achieved through the budgetary transfer of funds, with respect to the fiscal year 2006-07, in four states: Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Orissa. The approach taken here is thus radically different from that in official documents, where functional transfer to rural local bodies is dealt with in a purely qualitative manner, based on administrative notifications. Without an associated budgetary provision these do not carry any operational significance.