As the state celebrates the Local self-government day, it is time to review the performance of local bodies in the state and how the government has succeeded in making the bodies catalysts for better governance in the state. Local bodies have been given more autonomy and financial discretion in recent days to enable them to take prompt decisions and deal with emerging problems. However, the performance of the local bodies doesn’t seem to be satisfactory as serious flaws are noticed in the condition of the local urban infrastructure. Apart from major cities, the condition of public infrastructure maintained by local bodies doesn’t match the expectations of the people. Scarcity of fund is one factor to be blamed for the underperformance of the public bodies, but in most cases, it is the indifferent attitude and inefficiency of the office bearers which are responsible for the poor quality of public infrastructure.
While ensuring that the local bodies get enough funds to carry out their functions and broadening their scope for raising funds, the government should also focus on capacity building of these bodies by up skilling the human resource that manages these bodies. I hope the government to take necessary steps in this regard to make the local bodies more efficient and their services helpful for the people.