Environmental Development and People's Participation in Gram Panchayat: A Case Study in West Bengal State

The present paper seeks to examine Environmental Development and People‘s Participation in Gram Panchayat in West Bengal. West Bengal is the first and the only major state to have had timely panchayat elections on a party basis regularly every five years since 1978. The extent of people‘s participation in the planning process is significantly less compared to those other states like Kerala. This paper studies a particular component of a set of recently introduced reforms of the panchayat system in West Bengal that is aimed precisely at addressing this concern the introduction of requisite village constituency (gram sansad) meetings. A very unique and large-scale experiment in economic and political Decentralization was introduced in the late seventies in the Indian state of West Bengal.

West Bengal, being a predecessor in installing a 3-tier Panchayati Raj System (PRI) for rural local governance dates back to 1978 i.e.15 years ahead of the country‘s waking up to a constitutional mandate. Ever since inception, the state has demonstrated strong commitment to rural decentralization by ensuring regular elections to PRIs and also handed over them with responsibility of implementing various rural development programmes and making the development bureaucracy part of Panchayat Raj Institutions. The state of West Bengal also ensures representation of the socially backward classes-scheduled castes (SC), scheduled tribes (ST) and women in PRIs. Particular attention needs to be paid to the how much common people are aware about the environmental framework and Gram Panchayat really have urge to work for vulnerable groups in the villages.

The paper is divided into five sections for the sake of meaningful analysis. Section I, II and III deals with introduction and objectives, scope of the study and methodology. Section IV attempt has been made the pace of economic and environmental development through ESMF and VGDF analysis. Finally in the Section V attempt has been made general observations and recommendations of the study.