Development and Good Governance:A Sociological Appraisal

We are now well aware that our so called development and progress have failed to solve some serious and prime problems of mankind like eradication of poverty equitable sharing of resources, etc. Rather, execution of most of our developmental programmes endangers our future generations through excessive degradation of earth's resources and pollution of environment. In this context, achievement of sustainable development is a great challenge facing mankind. To achieve this, existing governance requires to be replaced by good governance in its actual spirit. Good governance is participatory, consensus oriented, accountable, transparent, responsive, and inclusive and follows the rule of law. It assures that corniption is minimized, views of all, more particularly of minorities are taken into account and voices of the most vulnerable section in the society are heard in decision-making.

Experiences from Andhra Pradesh reveal that indiscriminate development in the state along with bad governance minimizes the acce.ss to the natural resources. Various intervention by the state to raise revenues have resulted in breakdown of the support base of the poor, leading to the immense hardship to the vulnerable section of the society becau.se of limited substitution facilities available for alternative sources of their livelihood.

Kerala experiences suggest that environmental management treats pollution and erosion issues as trade-off in the negotiation with entrepreneurs or government organizations. Economic modernization of such type brings with it an alienation that separates people from one another as well as from nature. This is also detrimental to the environment.

Good governance is ideal but difficult to achieve in its totality. Even then, actions must be taken to achieve this goal in order to ensure sustainable human development. One must keep in mind that development is meaningless unless it invites all people to participate in programmes and offers an open call with all sorts of transparency.