( 1 ) WHILE India lives and labours in its thousands of village its rulers live in far away cities. The three great Department of the State located as they are in these cities are neither easily accessible to this vast majority of the Indian humanity nor they are capable of looking after their local needs the Constitution therefore, ordains that the state shall take steps to organize Village panchayats and endow them with such powers and authority as may be necessary to enable them to function as local units of self-Government (Article 40 ).

( 2 ) IN an apparent attempt to fulfil this high constitutional direction, the State of Andhra pradesh constituted the three-tier system of of local self-Government. At the bottom of this pyramid lies the Gram Panchayat and over it rests the Panchayat Samithi and zilla Parishad. At the time of constitution and inauguration of these organs with great fanfare of publicity, it was proclaimed that these organs would not only usher-in local self-Government but also Gram Swaraj which always remained an unfulfilled dream of the father of the Nation. Alas, for a long number of years, no elections to these organs of local self-Government were ever held

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