Local Planning and Democracy : Lessons from Kerala

Contents: Foreword. Preface. 1. Decentralisation of power through different phases. 2. Reflections in production sector. 3. The experiences in the service sector. 4. Decentralistion of power and the empowerment of the marginalised. 5. Functioning micro level Democratic forums. 6. Capacity building activities and exemplary models. 7. A retrospective analysis. 8. Democratic decentralisation and local planning: what next? Appendices. Bibliography. Index.

The Kerala model of development is well acknowledged all over the world. It has followed this tradition in the case of decentralizations as well. In 1996 after the 73rd and 74th constitutional amendment Kerala had launched a mass campaign for grassroots planning. Kerala experiment of decentralization has passed through more than one and half decade of experiments.

This book is a window to the academicians and activists working in the area of decentralization to get a deeper understanding about Kerala’s decentralization experiments. This work fills the gap of a comprehensive academic work which examines the different dimensions of decentralized planning in an analytical perspective. This book will be helpful to the different section of people who are interested to understand the Kerala’s decentralization experiments. Reflections from this work could also be instrumental in replicating the positive learning of decentralization from Kerala to the rest of the country. (jacket)