The Village Development Board (VDB) of the Kohima Rural Development Block reached a milestone of sorts recently celebrating its Silver Jubilee. As Dr. Shurhozelie, Minister Planning & Coordination rightly mentioned, before the concept of VDB was formed development activities had taken a back seat with corruption pilfering away funds meant for village development. The VDBs over the years not only took care of the defaulting system but it also facilitated the decentralization of power and planning, while empowering leaders at the grass root level. Today, there are about 157 VDBs in Kohima district while the all Nagaland figure is put at 1053 with the total time deposits in banks amounting to about Rs 45 crores for the entire State.
Many contextual elements have influenced the State’s governance experience. For one, the plurality of tribal systems makes this experience unique. Despite ongoing hurdles, particularly in the backdrop of decades of violent insurgency, the State did manage to continue interfacing with traditional institutions of governance on the one hand and, on the other, a stable association with modern democracy through the electoral process.
UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan had once said: “Good governance is perhaps the single most important factor in eradicating poverty and promoting development”. As such VDBs besides formulating development priorities for the village and preparing action plans must properly imbibe a good governance model to take the fruits of development to the common man in the villages.
The VDBs have been given the power to mobilize resources both from within the village and outside of it. Besides, the government provides assistance to the VDBs in the form of grant-in-aid, cash grants and benefits from other welfare programs. And today VDBs have evolved into a important governing structure. They have played a pivotal role in creation and maintenance of infrastructure in the villages. Some of their assets include village roads, schools, community halls, water tanks etc.
Although Nagaland is a small State, it has, as rightly pointed out by Dr Shurhozelie, become a role model for the entire country in paving the way for decentralization of powers through VDBs. It may be mentioned that the Planning Commission’s high level commission report to the Prime Minister for transforming the Northeast, headed by S.P Shukla, had applauded the achievements of the VDBs and recommended their replication in other States.
One hopes that VDBs, as a ‘role model’ for development activities, leaves no stone unturned in their continuing quest for bringing about economic progress and self-sufficiency in rural Nagaland.
