Food for Thought on Municipalities

Part IX (A) of the Indian Constitution deals with Municipalities in its totality—right from its formation, composition, reservation (including 33% for women), powers & responsibilities (including imposition of taxes), auditing accounts etc. In general, it lays down the ground rules for creating a strong and vibrant administration towards local self-government. Ever since the constitutional 74th Amendment which brought in Part IX A, Nagaland has also forayed into this. As we all know Part IX (A) of the Constitution has been referred to the Assembly Committee of the State Legislature in order to examine whether Nagaland should be exempted from the application of Municipalities as mentioned in this part. Now the question is whether Part IX (A) should be exempted for Nagaland or should we continue having it? The Nagaland Legislative Assembly Secretariat has in fact invited proposal/s, objection/s and representation/s etc on this subject.  At least publicly there has been no proper discussion held on the pros and cons of this matter. Perhaps this could either be indicative that public is not interested in the issue at hand or that they are okay either way i.e. having or not having Part IX (A). So the silence of the Naga public on this important issue is a little strange. Even the women groups who have been vociferous in their demand for implementation of 33% women quota, which is very much part of Part IX (A), are choosing to remain passive over what could entail annulling the entire part on Municipalities and thereby women reservation. Anyway this newspaper is not going to go into taking a stand of either ‘yes’ or ‘no’ with regard to the exercise being undertaken by our hounourable elected members of the State Assembly. Perhaps what we can do here is to share our perspective—a food for thought for our leaders to apply their wisdom in taking the appropriate decision. 

As we all know, Municipalities are endowed with the function of taking care of the administration in the sub-urban areas across the country. In short they are supposed to be the local self government, vested with enormous task and responsibility. This will also entail having a proper system in place such as office infrastructure, qualified manpower, capable administrators, councilors, the right implementation of the provisions of the Municipalities as mentioned in Part IX (A) and not to forget internal resource mobilization to run and maintain the Municipal bodies.  The question is whether we in Nagaland are upto the task of having another tier of government and fulfilling the constitutional obligation as mentioned in Part IX (A). This includes giving proper reservation to women, honest collection of taxes and its proper utilization for public welfare, performing the wide range of functions expected of a local self government, conducting timely election that is free and fair etc. Perhaps an objective assessment must be done to find out whether having Municipalities have benefited the government and people of the State especially in Dimapur, Kohima or Mokokchung. Those who favour doing away with Part IX (A) may argue their case that the so called Municipal councils are superfluous or something extravagant that resource crunch Nagaland could perhaps do without. The near failure of our experience with Municipal bodies (the same corruption and abuse of power) in the last five years or so may also work against those who may favour continuing with Part IX (A). However, at a broader level, the issue centers on decentralization vs. centralization of powers. We have to decide which model, in the present context of our local milieu, is going to be better suited to meet our development needs. For this, we need to perhaps take into consideration our limitations. Hopefully whatever decision is taken will be one that best serves the interest of the State and its people.