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Islamabad
hosts Pak-India Symposium on Local Governance
By Momin Bullo
Pakistan-India
Symposium on local governance held under the auspices of National
Reconstruction Bureau headed by Mr. Danial Aziz, on 1-3 July, 2007
at PC Lahore, was attended by a galaxy of elected officials,
bureaucrats, politicians, parliamentarians & the media personnel.
When hearts meet; mountains melt: NRB
Chairman Danial Aziz decorating Mani Shankar with traditional
Ajrak.
Topics came under
discussion during the two day symposium included:
1. Fiscal
documentation, fiscal capacity and financial management at local
level,
2. Outcome of
local government system in Pakistan and India: Achievements and
Challenges ahead.
3. Decentralized
planning, economic development through local government, including
Rural-Urban integration.
4. Women, youth
and citizen empowerment, including Capacity-building and training.
5. Theme:
“Experience sharing of local governance”.
The two day
symposium was formally opened on July 2, with the presentation of
key note address by Shri Mani Shankar Aiyar, Minister Panchayati
Raj, Youth Affairs and Sports and Development of the North Eastern
Region, Government of India. It was followed by the address of the
host, Mr. Danial Aziz, Chairman National Reconstruction Bureau,
Government of Pakistan.
Mani Shankar Aiyer bidding farewell
to Naeemul Haq, Member NRB’s Think Tank
In his address Mr.
Mani Shankar stressed the need for responsible administration for
that representative administration was must.
He explained in
detail the status of Panchayati System in India and disclosed that
12 lacs women represent the local government system in India,
which means the women in India enjoy 38% share in the system.
Mr. Danial Aziz decorating an aged Indian
Minister with Sindhi Ajrak
Mr. Danial Aziz the
Chariman of NRB in his speech said that:
Devolution of
maximum powers at grass roots level is the only solution for
elimination of corruption. Citizen community boards are very
important part of District Government System which present the
solution of Urban problems through government and public
participation.
These views were
expressed by Chairman National Reconstruction Bureau (NRB) Mr.
Danial Aziz, while addressing a concluding, session of two-day
Pakistan-India Symposium on Governance, early July, held at a
local hotel in Lahore. The NRB Chairman, the host of the
symposium, said that the people’s ability to keep an eye on the
performance and understanding about institutions besides democracy
pays key role in the development and prosperity of the nations. He
said that as an independent nation we have got very little time to
understood and harmonize ourselves with democracy and other urban
institutions. But with the passage of time political awareness and
promotion of education will be helpful in getting maximum benefits
from this system.
Danial Aziz said
that holding of elections repeatedly helps strengthen democratic
system. However, people will also have to change their approach.
He said positive change has been witnessed at grass roots level
through establishment of new district system in Pakistan. Now the
people have learnt to solve urban problems through collaboration
with government departments at local level, he added. He further
said that training has been imparted to Nazims at grass roots
level for the proper and judicious utilization of funds and
administration. He said that 37000 CCBs have been established
throughout the country and about 1000 CCBs are working in Lahore
City only. These CCBs are working on 300 various projects relating
to urban problems. He said that it is a fact that government
departments and bureaucracy resist the system private public
partnership. However, there is no other solution to urban
problems. Urban organizations will have to face all such
resistance. He said that it is the responsibility of media &
business community to play an active role for providing financial
assistance to urban organize, Hons and their coverage at local
level.
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Recommendations of
the Pakistan India Joint Working Group on Local Governance
By Momin Bullo
Background
In
pursuance of the Understandings reached in December 2006 between
the Government of Pakistan through the NRB and the Government of
India through the Ministry of Panchayati Raj for the establishment
of a Joint Working Group on Local Governance at the official level
and a Forum of Ministers co chaired by the Minister of Panchayati
Raj and the Chairman National Reconstruction Bureau, a three - day
Symposium on Local Governance was held at Lahore, Pakistan from 1st
to 3rd July 2007.
A group photo of guest participants with
Governor Punjab, General Rtd. Khalid Maqbool and NRB Chairman
Danial Aziz.
The 51 member
delegation from India was led by Shri Mani Shankar Aiyar, Union
Minister for Panchayati Raj, and included six Ministers from the
States of India, in addition to members of civil society,
academicians representatives of think tanks and officials. The
Pakistan side was led by Mr. Daniyal Aziz, Chairman, National
Reconstruction Bureau, Prime Minister’s Secretariat, Islamabad.
Three Provincial Ministers, Nazims/Naib Nazims, Local Councillors,
members of civil society, academicians and officials from Pakistan
attended the Symposium.
India lady participants in the symposium.
The Symposium
deliberated on various dimensions of the Local Government System
in Pakistan and on Panchayati Raj in India, focusing on the
following:
a) Outcomes of
the local government system in Pakistan and India: Achievements
and Challenges ahead.
b) Fiscal
decentralization, fiscal capacity and financial management at the
local level.
c) Decentralized
planning.
d) Economic
development through local government, including rural-urban
integration; and
e) Women, Youth
and Citizen empowerment including capacity building and training.
Recommendations
The Pakistan India
Joint Working Group on Local Governance (JWG) met, on the
sidelines of the Pakistan-India Symposium, on the 2nd
July 2007 and recommended the following activities for
consideration of the Forum in consultation with the respective
Governments:
a) The two sides
will continue to share their evolving experience in the above
listed five areas, particularly with a view to facilitating people
to people contact.
b) To facilitate
these exchanges Pakistan and India should each host one meeting
each year, besides arranging face-to-face encounters in each
others’ country of elected representatives to local
self-government institutions.
c) All
stakeholders, including elected representatives, think tanks,
government officials, academia, researchers and civil society
representatives should be invited to these meetings to share and
disseminate best practices and innovations in service delivery at
the local level.
d) Best practices
and innovations should be regularly shared between the two
countries through the National Reconstruction Bureau in Pakistan
and the Ministry of Panchayati Raj in India.
e) Stakeholders
will be encouraged to exchange views on issues surrounding local
governance and to participate in action research and in developing
comparative studies.
f) Experts and
officials on local governance from both the countries should be
invited, under an Exchange Programme, to participate as Resource
Persons in the Academies, Schools and Institutions in Pakistan and
India, to impart training and disseminate emerging developments in
the field of local governance.
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Return of the
native
Mani Shankar Aiyar visits Lahore
By Momin Bullo
Momin Bullo with Mani Shankar Aiyar.
Mr. Mani Shankar Aiyar, Federal
Minister of Panchyat System and India’s most prominent
intellectual and writer of books like
Karachi Papers” and most recent one “Confessions of a Secular
Fundamentalist”, attended Pak-India Symposium at Lahore as a
leader of 50-member delegation from India.
Mani Shankar’s
writings or the thought provoking speeches demand the attention of
all those concerned with the history, the present and future, of
the South Asian sub continent. His latest book entitled as
“Confession of a Secular Fundamentalist” is a passionate
affirmation of his belief that secularism is the only possible
creed that is true to the spirit of Indian history.
The 5,000 years
Indian history, he argues, is a river that runs with wonderful
streams of different colours and to deny any of these would be
untrue to India itself.
Momin Bullo with NRB’s Media Consultant
Ghazni Khan.
Written in the wake
of the Babri mosque demolition - which Aiyar describes as a mayor
blow to the unity of the Indian nation - it was just before the
elections of 2004 when the BJP government was riding high on the
horse of ’Shining India’ and had no doubt that it would he
returned to government. MSA has written with compelling argument
to stake his case, partly perhaps to assure himself and his
readers that the real India was ’secular’ even if power was
temporarily in the hands of those who denied it. It is a scholar’s
book where every point that makes is given the full background and
every possible shade of argument: it is also extremely readable.
MSA says that
although the word ’secular’ is of non Indian origin it best
describes what India and its religion of the 85% majority is about
- tolerance of minorities and dealing with them in an equal and
just manner.
Those who advocate a
purely Hindu Rashtra or Hindu nation completely misread the
history of India. They see freedom from colonialism not only as
freedom from Christian British rule but also from a thousand years
of Muslim rulers as well as other non Hindu and thus by definition
’non Indian’ rule. MSA shows that ’non Hindu rule’ was not just
Mudlims and British but also a thousand years of Buddhist
supremacy from Asoka (circa 300 BC) on to Harshavardhana of Kanauj
in the 7th century AD. The advocates of Hindu Rashtra prefer to
see the composite and secular culture of India as a bastardization
of the pure Hindu flow.
The secular basis
for India was set by Jawaharlal Nehru’s vision which was endorsed
by the electoral victory of Congress in the first elections in
India (February 1952). The secular ideal war enshrined in the
constitution. It continued to be the guiding principle of India
until it was challenged by the Hindutva Brigade when the Babri
mosque was demolished by in the presence of the main leaders of
BJP. The subsequent electoral victory of the BJP and its formation
of a coalition government fed to what appeared to be a major
revival of the Hindutva forces to challenge the secular ideal set
by Nehru.
Moreover and most
importantly it was Mr. Mani Shankar’s election campaign, where
Prim Minister Rajeve Gandhi was blown up in a suicide attack in
1992.
Shri LC Jain
(formerly member Planning Commission of India) in his speech said
that elections must be updated with in time. Ranjit Kumble said
that CCBs were effectively working throughout India. In India they
are funded 90% by the federal government & rest by the Panchayat
as compared to our system where 80% of the total cost of the
project is borne by the federal government while the rest is
contributed by the local populace.
Narendra Naryan
Yadev Behari said that in India Bihar is the first Raj where women
have been given representation on population basis. They have been
give representation at all levels.
In Bihar there are
8,650 gram Katchearis, which settle petty public disputes.
Mr. Mani Shankar,
while presiding a session experience sharing said that there are
four potent enemies of this system or who may better be explained
as anti-development lobbies: Politicians, Bureaucrats, Landlords,
Feudal lords and the Contractors.
He further said that
“I am not against the decentralization of corruption but against
the corruption itself. He also claimed that those Nazims (at
Pakistan) or Panchayat (at India) who don’t make corruption they
are bound to produce name and fame for themselves as well as the
state to which they belong.
He stressed the need
for social audit for controlling corruption.
Giving background of
the system Mr. Mani Shankar said that experience is not required
for availing political seat as in the case of Jawahir lal Nehru
who had hardly served as Chairman of Union council for six month
and was later on became the Prime Minister of India.
Appreciating the
services of Mr. Danial Aziz Chairman, NRB, he said that the system
in Pakistan has successful gained its roots.
He also pointed out
that with this system Bureaucracy in Pakistan has more
strengthened then earlier.
Mr. Mani Shankar
Aiyar during his surprise visit to the offices of City District
Government Lahore went to computer section and asked the system
operator to let him know the name of a man who was born on 20th
March 1940. The operator stunned him by letting him know it was
“Mani Shankar Aiyar”.
“The system in
Pakistan is successfully gaining roots”, were the spontaneous
remarks of Mr. Mani Shankar.
In the second
session of the symposium, Justice (R) Amjad said that with the
amendments in the law in 1972, the District Magistrate lost the
power of first class commissioner. Until on other amendment which
was brought in 1996, they kept on functioning which was illegal.
“Commissioners were just figure heads. They had nothing to check
the District Magistrates except to appoint Naib Tehseeldars etc”,
he further said.
Mr. Naeemul Haq, the
learned member of NRB concluded his presentation on the topic
“Administrative empowerment in Pakistan”, with that “good things
happen when planned, bad things happen on their own”. He said that
60 years ago when Pakistan was formed there were only 44 districts
now they have increased to 111, which is a good sign of
development.
Molana Hussain Ahmed
Sharodi, Provincial Local Government Minister of Balochistan said
that the local government system is hardly 6 years “Na Baligh”
(immature) baby and let it be grow more and bear a fruit which can
be sweet for some and sour for others.
Mr. M. Idress,
Provincial minister of NWFP also spoke on the occasion Dr. Azhar
Nadeem Additional IG Police Punjab and Mr. Bukhari, Secretary
Establishment Division also took part in the deliberations, and
shared their valuable ideas and experiences.
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