GLIMPSES OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT
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Author: Bijoyini Mohanty
1999, Gyanajuga Publications, Bhubaneswar
Local Government is a system in the governance of a country with the higher tiers of the government. However, the local traditions, culture, norms, religion, ethnicity are some determinants in shaping the administration of a definite geographical area. So to say, it is sui generis and cannot be restructured overnight. This stresses the local factors determining administration and demands a local administration.
The Central Government in different countries has aimed at altering the local government at its sweet will and thereby, things have turned clumsier than before. Time, as experience, has proved that lowest tier must be given proper weightage. Autonomy in action is a basic requirement at bottom and this must be guaranteed. Impositions from above is a mark of centralization and has not proved worthy. On the contrary, decentralization and vibrating politics, development and planning from below have attracted administrators and policy makers around the globe.
India has its own experience of local government culture in the post-colonial pattern inherited from the British. This system has a rich heritage of local administration which percolated into the oriental colony in an effective manner. Both rural and urban governments have been dealt with separately along with the comparison of the Panchayati Raj Structures of different states of India in specified tables.