Wednesday, May 13, 2015

The Doctrine of 60/40!!!

Its great to see political people from Delhi, especially our PM, are talking about "Cooperative Federalism". Though India was designed that way, it never practised it due to strong centralising tendensies. Now coliation politics being the fad of last two decades, National parties are using Finance comissions to woo their regional partners!


But does cooperative Federalism ends is mere financial allocation? No. It should cover every part of political spectrum. It must include strengthening of the role of states in Constitutional Amendments, Policy framing and institutes of democracy. The role of governor is still a mole in such proclamations. Saying this, the third tier of government - Panchyats - still lack revenue resources to carry out the intended tasks.

Cooperative federalism works better with people's participation in all tiers of the government which is still in letter but not spirit. The yawning gap between the top executive, legislature, judiciary should be narrowed down with suitable democratic institutions to make this Federalism really work as a participatory and cooperating federalism.

The doctrine of 60/40 should be revisited!!!

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