Centralization of Decentralized Governance - Evidence from West Bengal Panchayat

Democratic decentralization in the state of West Bengal, of its own, are not producing systems that are more effective or more accountable to local needs and interests. The formal mechanisms matter less than the informal institutions that underpin local political economies. And the understanding of it by the poor may have been reflected in the ballot box of last Panchayat election held in 2008. If 'only alternative of the left is better left', then the left strategy of democratic decentralization must have to be replaced by alternative model with more accountability, less corruption and abolition of those clientilsm.