Some Proposals for Reforming Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation Act & its Rules & Regulations in 2019
Objective 1: Firstly, the new municipal Act should reflect further devolution of functions, functionaries and funds to the urban local self-governing bodies, as envisaged in the 74 th Constitutional Amendment, which is not completed. Secondly, it is to provide more venues for increased direct participation of the urban citizen in the governance. Objective II: Only 40% of the urban population participates in the election of their local representatives for various reasons, which cannot be adjudged as a deficit in their democratic spirit. Hence,…
Some Proposals : Reform Land Administration and re-distribution of Revenue Department functions in the Districts
The Objective: Firstly, a new Act should de-concentrate the power of decision-making and execution of various functions from the Revenue department and the district collector by handing them over to the concerned departments present in the district. Secondly, it should reflect further devolution of functions, functionaries and funds to the local self-governing bodies, as envisaged in the 73 rd Constitutional Amendment. Measures : While acknowledging the historic contribution made by the Revenue Department for administrative unification of …
Administration in the District
More than the re-organisation of states, it is important to re-organise the 700 existing districts and multiply them by four times for the purposes of administrative viability, their specific development needs, as well as for self-governance. It is the British who formed the districts as administrative units in all the territories under their direct rule. Their formation was mostly based on their historical situations and military, revenue and administrative viability. After independence too, in the interests of consolidating national integrit…
A Citizen`s Letter to His President
Shri Ram Nath Kovind 18 th March 2019 Hon’ble President of India New Delhi Sir, Sub: The responsibility of preparing the nationwide Electoral Rolls, and the option of electronic voting. I am one of those citizens in the country, who is pained to see that our political representatives, while constantly criticising each other are not able to devote enough attention to the imperatives of economic growth. I also regret that the Constitution has not provided any op…
Our National Election Commission
By Dr.Rao VBJ. Chelikani It is time that the Election Commission of India becomes pro-active to promote better democratic practices on the part of our political class. It is probably one of the very few valiant institutions about which an average voter is not very cynical and whose objectivity, he does not doubt much. It has been, so far, able to protect the citizens’ statutory right to vote freely and fairly. With the introduction of the electronic voting machines with the possibility to visually verify one’s vote, its efficiency has increas…
Religions and Culture in India
With the emergence of an independent and awakened India, its culture is becoming more humanist, pacific, universal and inclusive, bereft of political or religious ideologies. By Dr. Rao VBJ Chelikani It would be interesting to understand a phenomenon that occurred very often in history in different parts of the world. We can produce a formula out of it: the higher the sophistication of a culture or civilisation of a nation, the lower would be its capacity to defend itself. Why did the mighty civilisations, so easily, succumb to physically das…
Why a Resident Welfare Association?
By Rao VBJ Chelikani Urban civil society organisations including RWAs have emerged as important players in governance and development of cities functioning as a fourth tier of grassroot self-governing micro-urban communities. Howeverm we have a peculiar situation where parallel mechanisms formed by the state apparatus exist to deliver functions that these micro-communities are carrying out. Including a list of functions that can be devolved to these bodies in the 7th Schedule of the Constitution could be considered as a solution to this weak…
Swachha Bharat Mission and RWAs
Dr. Rao VBJ. Chelikani We all remember that on 2nd of October, 2014, on Gandhiji’s birthday, both the President of our Republic and the Prime Minister, have launched the ‘Swachh Bharat Mission.’ We have started the most historic and biggest-ever nationwide campaign for making India clean and hygienic. It is shameful that India has been very much behind many of the developing countries in the world, to which we have started providing aid for their development. Gandhiji considering cleanliness as next only to godliness, had given much importance…
Whither Administration?
Dr. Rao VBJ Chelikani The waves of reforms that are touching the shores of civil service do not seem to touch military and judicial services. Defence Services i). In the technology-intensive world that we are living in, the recruitment to the defence services also has to be reviewed, so as to deviate from the traditional ‘Standing Army' concept and involve other citizens in the society ‘on call' in the deployment-strategies. Instead of increasing the numbers like China, we need to invest more in increasing the capabilities of our defe…
Citizens as Consumers
Bureaucracy: Some Reforms Dr.Rao VBJ Chelikani In some developing countries like Algeria, Tunisia, Senegal, and Kenya, soon after independence, there were attempts to revamp the entire colonial style of administration by filling the posts by the party militants who had sacrificed and suffered most. But, the results have not been very happy. Organising resistance is a quite different activity from administering services for the citizens. The militants very quickly initiated themselves into the bureaucratic mould of enjoying power and authoritar…
Effects of the Bureaucracy on our Economy
Dr. Rao VBJ Chelikani Having historically originated under the monarchies and, later, imbued with the welfare state mentality, the bureaucracy is empowering itself and is still insisting on doing things that the citizens themselves can do better, quicker and cheaper. Whether one is employed in the public sector or in the private sector, every citizen as an economic actor has to have equal social impact, accountability, and responsibilities. The Finance departments in India behave like a state within the state, retaining the right to suspect…
RWA Mission Statement
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