India - Bihar Panchayat Strengthening Project

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The development objective of the Bihar Panchayat Strengthening Project for India is to support the state government in promoting inclusive, responsive and accountable Panchayat Raj Institutions (PRI) in six districts. There are five components to the project. The first component is Panchayat Sarkar Bhawan. This component involves construction and making functional Panchayat Sarkar Bhawans in approximately 300 gram panchayats. The second component is capacity building for Panchayat Raj Institutions. This component builds panchayats' core institutional competencies to empower them to achieve substantive development outcomes. The component also engages communities and citizens, through training, mobilization, and media, to participate in local governance and to hold panchayats accountable. The third component is strengthening the state government capacity to manage a gradual decentralization and empowerment process. This component will strengthen the state government capacity to manage a gradual decentralization and empowerment process. The fourth component is panchayat performance grant. The annual best panchayat grant will reward exceptional panchayats that are inclusive, responsive and accountable. The recipients of the grant will be selected on a competitive basis. The competition criteria will include core institutional quality indicators related to how a panchayat runs its administration, how it interacts with its citizens, and how it manages resources and promotes local development. The competition will be based on objective information collected through the project information system with a validation process. Annually, the project will recognize the best gram panchayat in each district and block, and award them block grants, which are significantly higher than what they currently receive. The project will support this league of good panchayats to develop high impact initiatives that the grants will finance. The fifth component is project management and coordination. Government of Bihar (GoB) has established a Bihar Gram Swaraj Yojana Society (BGSYS) as the implementation agency for the project. The society is expected to play four critical roles: (i) A catalyst role: public awareness campaign, policy advocacy, innovative capacity building for visible development results, proactive partnership with Non-government Organizations (NGOs) to stimulate demand for accountability and improve PRI responsiveness; (ii) a technical support role: to support partner line departments to establish capacity in managing the devolution process and building PRIs capacity in the relevant service delivery area; (iii) a coordination role: coordinate, monitor and report on the devolution and PRI strengthening process; and (iv) a fiduciary role: project financing management, procurement and reporting. This component will finance staffing and operational cost of the society.