Keralam drafts permanent rules to streamline local body development planning
Keralam is introducing permanent rules for local body development planning, replacing an annual guideline practice to empower panchayats and municipalities, eliminate ad hoc projects, and ensure time-bound implementation.
Keralam is introducing permanent rules for local body development planning, replacing an annual guideline practice to empower panchayats and municipalities, eliminate ad hoc projects, and ensure time-bound implementation.
Keralam is introducing permanent rules for local body development planning, replacing an annual guideline practice to empower panchayats and municipalities, eliminate ad hoc projects, and ensure time-bound implementation.
Thiruvananthapuram: Ending a three-decade-old practice of relying on annual guidelines, Keralam is set to introduce permanent rules for local body development planning.
The move is expected to finally empower three-tier panchayats and municipalities to complete planning in a time-bound manner and accurately implement annual projects, leaving ad hoc projects behind.
As part of this move, the state-level coordination committee of the Local Self-Government Department, comprising the Local Self-Government Minister, senior officials and experts, has approved 20 draft rules for local project planning.
The draft rules, formulated based on the 1994 Kerala Panchayat Raj and Kerala Municipality Acts, will soon come up for the Cabinet's consideration following reviews by the local and law departments.
Elected representatives have long cried foul over guidelines being rewritten multiple times a fiscal year, which drags planning past the halfway mark, forces repetitive project overhauls and triggers administrative crises.
Experts have also argued that the old rulebook was choked by bureaucratic high-handedness and fell short of true decentralised planning.