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Should districts in India be governed by the district collectors who are appointed or should they be governed by an elected district council like the Zilla Parishad?
Most people in India perhaps don't realize that effective democracy actually doesn't exist from the district level downwards to smaller administrative units like the sub-divisions (variously called taluk, tehsil or mandal in different states) and further down to the blocks. It is the district level administration where the policies of both the union and state governments get implemented.
It can also be said that the union and state governments actually interface the people at the district level. And who do we have as the executive authority at the district level? The district collector...a civil services officer, who is appointed by the state government. This is a fundamental shortcoming of Indian democracy and it's a shame that nobody seems to be bothered about it including the great leaders who endlessly extoll the virtues of the world's largest democracy.
The State Structure of India
Like any other democracy anywhere, the Indian state stands on three critical pillars - the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary. Of these three, the legislature is the most powerful body which makes and changes the laws that run the particular administrative unit. Of course, the union legislature or the Parliament is the most powerful institution in the country and it has powers over all other legislatures, and the laws it makes, apply to the entire country.
The executive authority at the union level is the prime minister while at the state level it is the chief minister. Both these executive authorities draw their powers from their respective legislatures of which they are members and in which, their parties have a majority.
This is how parliamentary democracy in a huge country like India works and it is appreciated all over the world where it is known as the largest democracy. Ideally, this basic structure of the state should be present at every level of the administrative tree - the union, the states, the districts, the sub-divisions and the blocks.
Unfortunately, in the largest democracy in the world, this critical structure exists only at the union and state levels. As mentioned at the outset, in the districts, we don't have an executive authority who draws power from the legislature because, at the district level, the executive authority is the district collector, who is not an elected member of any legislature. He is a government servant and he is not accountable to the people of the district whom he governs. This is not acceptable in a democracy.
Why Should the Executive Authority Draw Power from the Legislature?
In a democracy, the executive authority is always an elected representative of the people. There are two types of executive authorities based on the two types of democracies that exist today - parliamentary and presidential forms. In India, we follow parliamentary democracy wherein the executive authority must be a member of the legislature (MPs and MLAs) to which he is directly elected by the people.
So the prime minister of India should also be an MP and the chief minister of an Indian state should also be an MLA. Also, they should be part of a party or coalition that is in majority in the legislature. They're answerable to the people of their constituencies and if they or their parties don't perform they could face defeat if and when they seek re-election.
This is called accountability, which only a democratic system ensures. Just as the prime minister can't personally administer all the states, the chief ministers of the states can't directly administer all the districts. Therefore, at the district level, there should be a legislature (e.g. district council or Zilla Parishad) that should be the source of all powers of the executive authority of the district.
We do have district councils and Zilla Parishads in districts but the district executive authority, the district collector, doesn't draw his powers from these district level legislatures. Instead, as mentioned earlier, they are government servants and career bureaucrats who are not elected members of these legislatures and hence, are not accountable to the people of the district for their actions.
The office of the District Collector
To begin with, the term 'district collector' is rather intriguing. Why on earth should the executive head of a district be called a collector? What is he supposed to collect? His job is to administer within which there could be scope for tax collection at the district level, but that's just a fraction of his KRA (Key Responsibility Areas). It doesn't make sense for this job profile to have this kind of a job title in today's India.
However, if we look back into the history of the district collector's post in India, then the term did make sense during the British Raj. This job profile was created by the British in 1772 with the primary objective of collecting as much tax as possible from the people of the districts they ruled in India. Administration of the district was a secondary objective. Hence, the post was termed 'district collector'.
Why did India continue with the same structure of governance at the district level and further down, post independence? Continuing with this structure for a couple of decades or three decades post independence to give time for district level democracy to mature in the interim would have been the ideal way to go about it.
A district power structure on the lines of the union and state power structures would have ensured the proper and desired flow of democracy down to the local community level. The necessary structure is already there in the form of Zilla Parishads or district councils but it has been made dysfunctional by the giving all its powers to the office of the district collector including the power to dismiss the Zilla Parishads.
The Administrative Reforms Commission has already recommended that the district administrative structure should be made democratic and the executive authority of the districts should be vested in the Zilla Parishad or district councils. The party or coalition with a majority in this legislature should elect the district executive authority (e.g. Mayor or Zilla Adhyaksh or whatever title is suitable and convenient).
The office of the district collector should be abolished because it is completely undemocratic and unaccountable and is just a remnant of colonial era administrative posts that were created to loot the people of India. This post can't be justified in the largest democracy of the world.
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