While elections are held regularly and enthusiastically, 'gram sabhas' are not held regularly. Most state governments have not transferred significant powers to the local governments. Nor have they given adequate resources. We are thus still a long way from realising the ideal of self-government.

The differences between the Local governments before and after the Constitutional Amendment in 1992 are

Federalism works in big countries where the area of the country is large and it makes it difficult to be effectively managed through one level of government. In such case, different levels of the government are formed to have broad based participation of the people. However, it is wrong to say that federalism works only in big countries. Even in a smaller country by size, which has complex diversity in respect to racial religious, cultural or language differences, federalism is practised. The rationale behind federalism is sharing power so that there is equal representation of all the social groups. So, federalism works in countries, big or small, where there is need to divide power in various levels of the government for efficient working of the entire system.