The Hindu Business Line : Working towards dispute resolution at village-level

Mr R.R. Patil, Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra, enjoys taking up difficult tasks right from his zilla parishad days. Known as ‘Mr Clean’ in the political arena, he has taken up cudgels against all those who block the road to a just society. Whether it is dance bars, college ragging or fighting terrorism he has taken the challenges head on.

Mr Patil became minister for the first time in 1999, holding rural development portfolio. He was given Home Ministry charge at the end of 2003 after the then deputy chief minister Mr Chhagan Bhujbal resigned. He became Deputy Chief Minister on November 1, 2004.

In a free flowing interview with Business Line, Mr Patil spoke about the achievements of his tenure in the last three years. Excerpts:

Can you shed some light on the ‘Tanta Mukta’ campaign, which your Government recently started?

It is an attempt to reduce conflicts in the villages, which are blocking the path to development. The countryside is plagued with class, caste and conflicts based on religion. Our attempt is to give an alternative dispute resolution system right at the village level, which will reduce litigations. We want to bring back the system of dispute resolution, which existed, earlier in the villages.

Today in Maharashtra there are 40 lakh cases pending and yearly 900 murders are taking place in the State. Somewhere this situation has to change therefore the State Government launched the Tanta Mukta campaign. It is not just conflict resolution but also a reformative action campaign.

In the first stage, all the pending court cases would be listed. The Gram Sabha would elect a Tanta Mukta committee consisting of representatives from all sections of the society. This committee will work towards resolving the conflicts. However, the committee will not look into the crimes committed under the Atrocities Act. If the committee resolves the conflicts then the warring sides will withdraw the cases.

What has been the success of this campaign?

The campaign is yet to come to its full form, but the efforts have started yielding results. Our initial steps for the campaign have also been innovative. We realised that festivals also create conflicts, therefore ‘One village one Ganapathi’ idea was launched.

This led to 9,500 villages celebrating only one public Ganapathi festival. In all these villages no police force was deployed.

It has been our experience that more force is deployed during festivals than during elections. With this innovative concept we have attempted to stem the conflicts, right at the root.

How do you rate the performance of your government?

When we came to power the State had drought-like conditions, immediately after that year we faced unprecedented rains and floods.

In spite of suffering from such major calamities – the industrial growth and GDP of Maharashtra has not been affected, which I think is a major achievement. When we took reins of the Government our treasury was empty. We did not even have money to pay to the State Government employees. Today the situation has considerably improved and we would be soon raising Rs 16,500 crore for our irrigations projects. This year, we have earmarked Rs 4,300 crore for development programmes for the schedule castes and tribes. No other State in the country has such quantum of funds for the upliftment of the poor.

What is the status of police reforms?

When we reviewed the working of the police force we realised that on an average the policemen were working 14 hours a day and worked without a break for three months. It was an inhuman situation and therefore we decided to recruit new policemen. In the last two years, we have recruited 22,000 more policemen but a backlog of 33,000 still remains. It would be filled up in the next three years and their duty hours would be reduced to eight. Today our policemen and their families can go to any private hospital and get treatment.

The State Government pays the bill. The response time of the force to any emergency has also been reduced to 5 to 7 minutes, which can be compared with the advanced countries.

More Stories on : Interview | Rural Development | Politics | Maharashtra

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