ABSTRACT
The principle of adult franchise and direct election to choose people's representatives was adopted not only at the national and state levels, but also at the local government level. It took a quarter century after independence to give a constitutional recognition to Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) and urban local government respectively through the 73rd and 74th Amendments to the Constitution in 1992. The Balwantrai Committee visualised three levels of PRIs – the village panchayats at the village level, panchayat samitis at the block level and zilla parishads at the district level. The panchayat samitis were executive bodies, and had the main responsibility of all development work at the local level, covering agriculture and allied activities, promotion of local industries, public health, welfare work, management of primary schools and collection and maintenance of statistics. Village panchayats were the only institutions among the three-tier PRIs that were to be directly elected by people.
