From Centralized Government to Decentralized Governance

This book features the top minds of the country deliberating and discussing and in the process agreeing with some arguments while disagreeing with others. This is the first in a series of transcribed books that the ups centre for advanced research and Training - governance and development of the Osmania University is proposing to bring out. This book results from the transcripts of the recording of the whole proceedings in the spoken form, subsequently transcribed keeping in view the necessity to have correct syntax and semantics of spoken discussion. The book is not about laying definitive paradigms of either governance or development; It is about disabusing people of the notion that such a prescription is possible. All the arguments in the book look microscopically at the pros and cons of decentralized governance which is recently being suggested as the panacea for all the problems of the country. The book with its arguments also demonstrates that there is no one form of Decentralization and also about how in the name of Decentralization increasing centralization is being carried out. This book seeks to inform readers sufficiently to walk away from deliberately created stereotypes and look deeper into the actual workings of both government and governance and see if they are able to generate a sustainable form of development that does not just serve the purpose of the top echelons of society but also those of the bottom layer where most people are not even aware of their entitlements given to them by the Indian Constitution.