Gram Panchayat is the ground unit of local self-governance system in India. It acts as an intermediary between the administration and the people. Gram Panchayat plays a key role in uplifting the condition of the people at the grass-root level and also in strengthening the system of village governance.
The current COVID-19 scenario is possibly going to change and reshape a lot of things in the near future. There are a number of analysis already in place which specify that there would be a huge economic crisis with the GDP falling at a tremendous level. So, there might be many implications, like the rate of unemployment may increase, job loss, demand and supply gap, and inflationary effects.
The population who were working as migrant laborers have encountered extreme suffering due to which, next time, they will be in a dilemma about stepping out of their houses. It will increase the need for a new livelihood generation process at the local level. Therefore, there will be an emerging need to develop effective strategies to tackle the post-COVID-19 livelihood crisis scenario.
Earlier, the villages were based on agriculture. However, after the globalization era, villages in India have also changed drastically, and new forms of lifestyles and consumption patterns have been adopted by the people, giving rise to a different set of needs and demands amongst the people. So, in the post-COVID period, it would be a little difficult to generate livelihood opportunities for those who would be in extreme need.
Panchayat can be one of the effective institutions to help people at the grass-root level. Engaging Gram Panchayats in improving livelihoods and providing economic and social security would be a critical step towards the betterment of the people.
Here are a few possible strategies on how panchayats can play a major role in improving livelihood opportunities:
- Needs assessment– The Gram Sabha provides a platform to come together and discuss development plans and strategies. As the Panchayat body consists of local representatives, it generally has proper information on each household of the village. So both of them can identify the most vulnerable and needy households to provide support with livelihood interventions on an urgent basis.
- Effective planning– Panchayats can play an important role in preparing an effective plan through participatory approaches to boost the livelihood generation process. It can also arrange for the necessary inputs in terms of resources and skills. As a local body, the Panchayat can perform the SWOT analysis of itself to implement the programmes in a better way.
- Strengthening MNREGA– MNREGA operates as one of the important flagship livelihood generation programmes in India. Strengthening the programme will help the most vulnerable and needy groups to generate employment, and also, effectively working on it with a proper plan can lead to the generation of new opportunities as well. Panchayats can play a role in context-based planning and better implementation of that.
- Effective implementation of government programmes– There are a number of schemes focusing on poverty alleviation, employment and livelihood generation. However, there is a need to make people aware of their rights and then implement the schemes effectively. It will help the vulnerable groups to uplift their economic condition and increase their well-being. The process can also provide bank linkages and loans to drive people towards self-employment.
- Market linkages of local production– In this period of lockdown, one of the reasons for the emerging economic crisis is the non-availability of market. The Panchayat system and the Gram Sabha can help strengthen local livelihood generation strategies and also market local production by identifying the sources of demand and supply and by facilitating the market-linkage process between both the parties.
- Collaboration with different bodies– Collaboration within different bodies is necessary to win this battle against the pandemic. Even in the post-COVID situation, the Panchayat can increase its efficiency by collaborating with different bodies to get effective results. There would be a scope to collaborate with different community-based organizations, women collectives, media, agriculture (Krishi Vigyan Kendra) and livelihood support institutions (NRLM) to prepare its context-specific planning and then to implement it.
- Fair Public distribution system– In the post-COVID situation, most of the vulnerable communities would not have the money in place to continue their daily life and meet their basic needs. Fair and need-based distribution of food-grains through PDS will increase their economic and social protection. Ensuring availability of food grains for everyone and facilitation of distribution process by the Panchayat will increase transparency.
The COVID-19 scenario has probably helped us explore the deep-rooted leakages in our system. Though we have proved to bring good policies for poverty alleviation since independence, the present reality shows that we have failed to secure the lives and livelihood of our people. It has shown the capacity of the country in terms of health facilities, education and level of awareness, responsibilities of the citizens, accountability, etc. Tackling all of these at the same time after COVID-19 would be difficult.
As a Panchayat operates at the local level within a small terrain, it can contextualize the development interventions. In the post-COVID scenario, scaling one intervention all over the country will not always help, but the effective way would be to make it context-specific. At this point, to strengthen the economy, wage employment will help, but the aim should be to shift it gradually towards self-employment.
Panchayats can always support in different ways, and as an administrative body, it would be easy for them to take the voice of the people to the top level of administration, which may impact the good governance and policies. Then, Panchayats will emerge as actual representatives.
About The Author: This piece has been written by Nilanjan Panda, who is a student of the ISDM Class of 2020 in the 1-Year Post Graduate Program in Development Leadership.