Grassroots Democracy and Local Governance Issues: Perspective from Rural India

Abstract

India is a country of vast villages where two-third of population of India resides. India is a largest, vibrant and functional democracy. The local self-government system of Panchayati Raj was introduced in the constitution of India through the 73rd Amendment in which the village life extensively runs in a democratic way through the decentralization approach. This 73rd Constitutional Amendment Act brings out a vital change in rural life holistically for the objective of ‘Empowering People for Prosperity’. India has nearly 3.1 million elected members through more than 250,000 local government units. Local government authorities have the authority to create development plans for the areas, with the aim of fostering social justice and local economic development. The implementation challenges of policies and programs before the local government and the also the role of local elites, politically powerful groups, bureaucratic society and private enterprises to become for providing good governance for the development of rural areas. By using the secondary based data to find out the local government system and governance in India. This paper reveals forward states provide good governance through the local government in the core areas of development with execution of plans in rural India and on the other hand, backward states are lack in governance due to nature the corruption laden politics exist in that states. This study sums up with the significance of grassroots democracy and its role in the development of rural India and at the same time to highlights the hurdle in the governance ecosystem of local governments in rural India.