Devolution and Dist government

1. Devolution and Dist. Government
With the implementation of the devolution plan in the provinces, the mind-boggling
question surfacing is, will the provinces get control over their resources? But the political
history is replete with transgression of basic constitutional rights reserved for the
provinces. Since the 1950s we have witnessed the failure of all sorts of notions about the
local government. We seem to have no knack how to adjust the system at its right place.
Consequently, the entire system is mired with confusions and mismanagement.
Ayub Khan's experiment with his Harvardian group miserably failed to evolve a new
system. The group could not succeed in bringing about any major changes in the district
administrative system. The whole political history of the country seems to be a story of
kings who have had done great shuffling with constitutional framework, with no mature
thinking. Out of these crises surfaced Gen Pervez Musharraf to shuffle the cards once
again. This time shuffling of cards has assumed the shape of labyrinth going to be beyond
redress.
Provinces are looking to the federal government to confer rights on them. But the Centre
is hell-bent on keeping the provinces at arm's length at any rate. Analysts suggest that the
main cause of dismemberment of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) was in the over
centralization in which the Centre failed to bring the units together on any agenda.
One fails to understand why the devolution plan is for the provinces only. Why the
federal unit is kept free from this. In any independent state the units are brought at an
equal footing; the lingering concept of bigger unit and smaller is done away with by
creating an equal scale for the units. But here the provinces are each at other's throat for
their respective rights that the federal government has failed to give them because of its
over centralization of powers.
It is federalism that conforms the rights on the units and their local government to
enhance, maximize, plan their own resources, regulate the administrative authorities as
per their respective needs and demands within the given framework of provincial law.
But the situation for the past 50 years is just the opposite.
Here, smaller provinces always cry for their rights. There is a need to narrow down the
distance between the Centre and the provinces. The provinces must get free hand from
the Centre to tackle with all economic and social problems that the federal government
has not so far solved or has failed to solve them. This can happen if the provinces are
taken into confidence. The highly centralized federal system has worsened the political
situation that has created the mess, as a result of which the provinces are at odds over
petty issues.
The trouble with the present devolution working at the district level is that the system has
bypassed the provinces. In true sense, the management of district governments, being part
and parcel of provincial matter, should have been the concern of the provinces; but this

2. clause of provincial autonomy has been neglected. Here both the provincial and district
governments seem to stick with the federal government's apron.
The Constitution of 1973 countenanced the federal system for Pakistan; but still the
demand for the provincial autonomy is a great constitutional tussle in our history, the
demand of promulgation of true federalism still persists. But the concentration of power
in the hand of the Centre made the system unitary in nature. That has had worsened the
situation.
When we are bogged down in the mud, the military ruler realizes the need for
decentralization. The decentralization bears all the ideals to soothe away the grievances
of smaller provinces because within the unitary system the smaller provinces feel being
cold-shouldered by the government. It was on this basis that all the provinces had
welcomed the Constitution of 1973, as they were to receive some genuine dispensation of
provincial autonomy. As time rolled on, the great animosity cropped up against the
central authority because of its totalitarian attitude. The provincial resentment has never
abated against the central authority.
One thing that needs to be considered is that by making the demarcation of the central
and provincial powers, the federal system is certainly not assured. But the entire
mechanism pins down also on the law and tradition relating to centralization. Considered
from this stand, one of the main impediments to the provincial autonomy and local
governments in the system is that of the central control over the civil servants and police
officers keeping the key posts in the provinces.
The new district government system, instead of coming up to true expectation, is
generally deemed as the flawed and failure plan. Councillors and Nazims are hot under
collar with each other. While on the hand the bureaucracy has put the spoke in the
devolution plan's wheel, people generally feel they are caught in the catch-22 situation
where authority is faceless and nameless. No one knows where to go for dispensation of
problems.
The one optimistic consideration related with the devolution is that the institutions
working at the district level can be revitalized with the prudence and sensible planning;
that can restore the prestige of institutions that are fast decaying away because of
corruption and inefficiency of the people at the helm. It is fact that in the old system the
provincial bureaucracy and politicians hijacked the affairs at the district level. The
situation earlier had come to such a pass that the funds allocated for the rural and town
communities were misappropriated.
However, there are still complications in the plan that may prove main impediments in
the proper running of the plan. Accordingly, DCO, police and other department
functioning in the district are to remain under the district Nazim, their service attachment
bound them to the federal and provincial governments and that may be disruptive for the
entire plan. Because the military rulers have marginalized the bureaucracy, as DMG and
other civil servants in the present plan at the district level have got the secondary status

3. that may create difficulties for the plan at the lower level.
The efficiency and credibility of the entire plan rests with the proper management and
right demarcation of authorities for the officials at the district level to function in tune
with their powers; and how the various institutions, with the provincial and federal
bureaucracy and national politics, get themselves involved in the new tune of the
devolution plan.
One pessimistic approach is that the old system of centralized political authority and
bureaucracy may play with the local administration the mouse-and-cat game. It is the
general cry that the decentralization or devolution of power is far away from the practice
as the local district authorities feel themselves powerless and without clearly spelled out
functions. Consequently, the plan seemingly possesses no meaning for the masses for
which it is devised so as to remove their problems.