Introduction To Public Administration–MGT111 VU
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LESSON 41
DEVOLUTION PLAN – II
In this lecture we will examine the reasons for devolution, the Devolution plan and its purpose
and the areas where devolution has occurred.
Devolution
In the last lecture it was mentioned that devolution is based on the separation of the executive from
the judiciary, and Article 37 (i) required government to decentralize its operations so as to bring these closer
to the public. The changes included the doing away with the existing three levels of de-concentrated
provincial administration (divisions, districts and tehsils). It meant it was felt that there was need to separate
the three branches of government (i.e. judiciary, executive and legislature).
As we know that the 1973 Constitutions contains Federal and Concurrent List which centralizes
revenue responsibilities by bringing the sales tax under federal control, and the list takes many of the other
responsibilities of provincial government. This centralizes the functions and revenue generation capacity of
provinces. There is thus a significant mismatch between expenditure responsibility and revenue generation
capacity of the lower tiers of government, and the provinces in aggregate depend on federal transfers for
over 78 percent of their revenues. When they depend for revenues from the Federal Government they have
little freedom to plan their own projects.
What Does Devolution Do To The Local State?
Local government as we know is the lowest level or district government. Within districts there are
tehsil and in a tehsil are union councils. As we have learnt that Constitution although has provision for
separation of powers, yet it centralizes power. Devolution Plan 2000 creates local institutions and empowers
these institutions to design development schemes. This is done by creating local governments. In 100
districts there are now 6,458 new local governments and 4 city districts; 306 tehsil municipal administrations
and 29 city towns; and 6,022 union administrations. Under the Devolution Plan there are political reforms,
financial reforms and administrative reforms. Political Reforms had held elections of 126,462 new union
councilors.
Aim of Devolution Plan
It would be pertinent to outline the aim of Devolution Plan 2000. There are three broad aims of
Devolution Plan. These are:
1. To introduced new blood into a political system considered to be the domain of historically
entrenched interests. It was felt that the old and conventional political leaders discouraged
young politicians to participate in election.
2. To provide positive measures for marginalized citizens which include women, workers,
peasants-to have access to politics; and
3. To improve service delivery of social services in particular. It was argued that if local
governments, appropriately empowered, staffed and resourced, would deliver better primary
health, education and municipal services like water and sanitation. A second service-delivery
objective was to improve the laws about property, labour rights and economic activities were
determined and enforced. Thus, local governments were given responsibilities to regulate and
administer laws on land, labour natural resources.
4. The devolution also aimed to facilitate access to justice. The belief that performance of local
administration, courts and police would improve basic human rights.
Citizen Participation
Since devolution aimed at providing and improving services at the local level, therefore, Citizen
Community Boards (CCBs) are set up for alternate dispute resolution, monitoring of court conduct,
promoting justice, accountability of the police and administrative grievance redressal. The CCB comprise
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