A very important feature of the Devolution Plan is the participation and involvement of non-elected citizens in the development process in their respective local areas. The institutional arrangements for the attainment of this objective are provided through CCBs. Section 98 of PLGO 2001, encompasses the objectives, composition and scope of CCBs as under:

 “In every local area, groups of non-elected citizens may, through voluntary, proactive and self-help initiatives, set up any number of Citizen Community Boards. Such Citizen Community Boards shall be set up for the purposes of, inter alia, energizing the community for development and improvement in service delivery, development and management of a new or existing public facility, identification of development and municipal needs, mobilization of stakeholders for community involvement in the improvement and maintenance of facilities. …………..”

A TMA   is bound to set apart 25% of its development budget for allocation to CCBs. The unspent CCB allocation in a financial year cannot be expended on any other development or non-development activity.  The unspent CCB balance continues to accumulate and becomes available for CCB allocation in the next financial year. A TMA can provide up to 80% funds for a CCB scheme and the remaining 20% are to be arranged by CCB itself.

In spite of this convenient availability funds for development, citizens are not making best of this opportunity. Apart from reluctance of citizens to provide 20% matching funds, the laborious and cumbersome CCB rules and non-proactive attitude of the concerned local government staff are partly responsible for substantial under-utilization of development funds available through this innovative, participatory, pro-citizens development initiative.

The details of year-wise allocation of funds for CCBs is given below:

 

Sr. #	Year	Allocation	Total Available	Expenditure	Un-Spent Balance
1	2005-06	7,50,00,000	7,50,00,000	-	7,50,00,000
2	2006-07	-	-	900,000
3	2007-08	1,75,00,000	1,75,00,000	-	1,75,00,000
4	2008-09	3,07,00,000	3,07,00,000	2,57,16,867	-