Having spent most of the nine years of my journalism career reporting from Delhi, I had very vague and sketchy ideas about how a district administration functions.

And until my editor sent me packing to Abu Road, an underdeveloped, tribal-dominated block in Sirohi district of south Rajasthan, to report on grassroots governance for six months, all I knew about a district’s operation was that the district magistrate (DM) is THE boss of a district, and every buck stops at his table.

While I was not too far off the point, and a DM is indeed the final authority, what I had no idea about are layers and often complicated layers of levels at which a district administration functions.

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The two halves of Abu Road block

Stumbling through different layers of the bureaucratic maze for nearly a month now, I am a step closer to demystifying this labyrinth. Let’s try it now and pep our memories of the good old Civics lessons, so that we cherish the ground-level reportage from the four ground zeroes with a better appreciation of the hierarchical structure.

First up, there are two distinct parallel structures at the district. The first is the administrative side, starting with the district collector (DC) and going down to the panchayat secretary, and the latter is the panchayati raj institutions (PRIs) headed by the zila pramukh, with the sarpanch at the lowest ladder of the structure.

Unraveling the administrative side
As we all know, a district administration is headed by a district collector or district magistrate, who is, by virtue of his/her position, the revenue collector, the magistrate, and is also responsible for law and order situation in the district.

While these responsibilities of a DC/DM are almost uniform throughout the country, her/his role as the chief development officer (CDO) varies from state to state. The states where he is also the CDO (like in Uttar Pradesh), he is the be-all and end-all of the district, supervising revenue collection, law and order and the development or welfare schemes.

In many states (as in Rajasthan), the DC or DM’s roles as a chief development/welfare officer is delegated or shared with the chief executive officer (CEO). For the sake of making things less complicated, let us take the position of CEO out of the picture. The term CEO is interchangeable with the DC as far as development or welfare schemes are concerned. 

Coming back to the role of a DC/DM’s as a revenue collector and chief development officer, he is aided by two independent departments that branch out as separate wings.

Let’s look at the development or welfare wing first.  The funds of the development schemes flow through the DC to the head of the blocks (a district is divided into several blocks and a block is further divided into a number of panchayats) called block development officer (BDO) and through the BDOs to the panchayats overseen by the panchayat secretaries (a government official at the bottom of the administrative ladder).

So, here’s the pyramid on the development/welfare side:  DC -BDO-panchayat secretary.

For the collection of revenue, a district is divided into subdivisions, also called tehsils, headed by sub-divisional magistrates (SDMs). It is important to note here that blocks and subdivisions are independent of each other. A block does not come under a subdivision and a BDO does not report to an SDM, unlike what I thought earlier in my naiveté.

Under the SDMs are tehsildars/naib tehsildars, who look after revenue collection in their respective tehsils. Each tehsildar is assisted by an office of kanungo, who is further assisted by a patwari at the village level.

The government’s representative at the village level, the Patwari is a salaried public servant with one or two villages in his charge.  Being a local man, he is referred to as the eyes and ears of a collector. Duties of the patwari include conducting surveys, field inspections, recording of crops, revision of maps or reports relating to mutation, partitions, revenue or rents, among others.

Pyramid on the revenue collection front: DC-SDM-tehsildar-kanungo-patwari.

Panchyati raj institutions
The 73rd amendment gave constitutional authority to the three-tier panchayati raj system. In this set-up at the lowest level comes a panchayat, formed by a cluster of villages, followed by the panchayat samiti at the block level comprising several gram panchayats, and at the top rests the zila parishad.

A panchayat is headed by a sarpanch, a panchayat samit by a pradhan, and zila parishad by a zila pramukh.

All these are directly or indirectly elected representatives: every five years all panchayats in a district directly elect their sarpanchs, ward panches, panchayat samiti members and zila parishad members.

The directly elected panchayat samiti members then elect one among them as their head, called a pradhan, at the block level. Similarly, the directly elected zila parishad members elect one among them as Zila Pramukh at the district.

At the panchayat level a sarpanch is helped by an up-sarpnach who is again elected by the directly elected ward panches.   

Pyramid: Gram Panchayat at the village level (headed by a sarpanch); panchayat samiti at block level (headed by a pradhan); zila parishad at the district level (headed by a zila pramukh).

Parallels at work: administrative line and panchayati raj
The idea of the two parallel structures is to act as a check and balance against each other. Similar to the structure at the Centre or the states, where the prime minister or the chief ministers are aided, advised and, often, kept in check by the bureaucrats, each elected representative is aided, advised and kept in check by government official at the district level as well.

At the lowest level, a sarpanch functions in coordination with the panchayat secretary (the government official at the lowest ladder on the administrative side), at the block level a pradhan acts in coordination with the BDO, while a zila pramukh is helped and aided by the DC.

At each level, welfare funds are transferred in the joint account of the administrative official and elected representative. At the panchayat level, for instance, funds are transferred to the joint account of the sarpanch and panchayat secretary; at the block level to the joint account of pradhan and BDO; and at the district level they are sent to the joint account of zila pramukh and DC.

At each level, the funds can be taken out with joint signatures of the account-holders.

A bit more: line departments
Besides these two distinct pyramids, there are line departments at work as well in a district. The health department, for instance, is headed by chief medical office (CMO), while the education department is led by the district education officer. Funds for both departments flow from their respective heads down to the blocks, and further on to the panchayats.

For example, fund allocated for the national rural health mission (NRHM) is monitored by the CMO and, through him, flow to the blocks and panchayats. Similarly, funds for sarva shiksha abhiyan (SSA) are monitored by the district education officer, before being transferred to the blocks and panchayats.