Each Thursday in Tebaria, a union parishad close to the town of Natore, there is a hive of activity in the village court. Attempts are made to quiet down different types of disputes among the villagers in the presence of the union parishad chairman and other respectable village personalities. But the parishad has many other responsibilities in addition to adjudicating and arbitrating over local disputes.

Golam Sarwar, chairman of the Tebaria union parishad says that they are exhausted with the pressure of so many different types of jobs. "Union parishads have 10 compulsory responsibilities and 48 optional tasks. Moreover, circulars are coming daily from different ministries of the government asking us to do many more new jobs," he says.

"If the dead body of a dog is left on the street, the union parishad is responsible for dumping that dead animal. Family planning, birth registration, health, education, and sanitation -- these jobs are our responsibility. But it's not possible for us to carry out all these responsibilities."

Whenever the issue of development is raised, most villagers want roads, bridges, and financing towards schools or mosques. But how much of these development needs can the union parishads satisfy? Villagers sitting in a tea-stall in one of the bazaars have strong opinions.

"Forget the construction of our roads and bridges, union parishads cannot even pay the wages of their guards and employees. What development will they do for us?" asked Abubakar Siddiqui.

Law and order in the villages is another responsibility of the union parishads. But how far this is done with so few numbers village police and night guards?

"We do as far as we can. But due to the fear of the terrorists, robbers or the thieves we cannot move a lot in the night, whatever we do, we do during the day," says Abdul Gafur, employed as a guard.

Earlier, village markets and bazaars were one of the main sources of income of the union parishads. But now, the responsibility of leasing them are in the hands of the central government.

The Chairman of Tebaria union, Golam Sarowar, says that because they are dependent on central government for big budget development works, they rely on the goodwill of ministers and MPs. "In fact we don't have any budget. This is the main reason why we cannot work according the expectations of citizens. The main problem lies here," he said.

In fact, members of union parishads have to knock at the doors of upazila parishads to release development funds. Female UP member Neelmoni Begam thinks that if development allocation was directly the responsibility of the union parishad, bureaucracy would be reduced and development work would be easier to start.

According to Neelmoni Begam, their situation is like that of the Nidhiram Sardar, a soldier without a sword or a shield. The government has given them responsibilities for many jobs but does not give them any power.

Inactive Upazila Parishad
The Ukhia upazila parishad is a good example of this. Located only half an hour away from Cox's Bazaar, its roads are jammed with rickshaws and hand-carts. While the bazaar is busy like this at midday, the scene at the nearby upazila parishad complex is totally different. Rows of offices are totally empty by early afternoon.

The absence of staff and the overall impression of inaction do not necessarily mean that people are away without leave, says UNO representative Masud Karim. According to him many officers have to go to the field to supervise work. But he has no explanation as to why all of the officers of the upazila parishad are absent at the same time.

Local MP Shahjahan Choudhury said that, although the upazila parishad system is an important part of the local government system, it is too lethargic. He says that often upazila officers are not properly accounting for their time, which is why there is sloppiness in their activities. Mr Choudhury aid that it is regrettable that upazila elections cannot not be held due differences of opinions among policy makers within the government.

Local government: The political pledge
Whenever the question of transferring more power to local government arises, there is marked reticence on the issue from the central government.

Recently a citizen's committee carried out some country-wide activities to put pressure on political leaders to revive the local government, especially the upazila parishad.

Dr. Badiul Alam Mazumder was associated with this citizen's forum called Sthaniya Sarkar Sahayak Group.

But he says that unfortunately he did not get a positive response from politicians towards their initiative. "Upazila elections are very important for us," Dr. Mazumder said, "but because they do not have any associated institution the union parishads are becoming weaker day by day. If there had been an elected upazila parishad then the union parishads would not have become so weak. But the politicians are not interested in it."

Dr. Mazumder thinks the problem lies with the members of the parliament. MPs of both government and opposition parties are against the strengthening upazila parishads. "They think elected upazila chairmen will be their political competitors," he said. "If there are elected upazila parishads, they won't be able to continue the unconstitutional way of poking their noses in the local development."

But the local government minister and general secretary of BNP, the major party of the governing alliance, Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan says that there is no problem in his party over the issue. "We have pledged in our election manifesto that we will make the upazila system effective. The government, the opposition, everyone wants it. But due to some practical reasons we could not implement it. But we have never said that we will not implement it."

Even so, Mr Bhuiyan fails to generate any hope that upazila elections will be possible during this government term. He says that if it does not happen during this term, the government will implement this promise following the next election.

Hossain Zillur Rahman of Power and Participation Research Centre, an NGO which is working for the empowerment of the local government, thinks that very little local government power has been applied in grass-root level development.

"Local government system is not a bureaucratic system, rather it should be an elected system," he says. "But it has another power, to draw together the people, to inspire the people. We don't concentrate on that power."

Mr Rahman thinks that many local level problems can be solved locally if the power of local government is properly deployed. But many people remain doubtful about how far politicians will be willing to use this power and how far the central government will agree to share its power and responsibilities with the local government.

Bangladesh Sanglap 3: How far the local government system of Bangladesh is working?

This programme will be broadcasted today (Thursday) at 8 pm after the BBC's Bengali Programme Probah in Shortwave meter band of 31 and 41 (at 9395 and 7520 Khz) and in Dhaka at FM 100 MHz. It will be televised in Channel I television on Sunday at 8 pm.

The Daily Star is the print media partner of BBC for the programme Bangladesh Sanglap.