The Act makes school education a tripartite partnership between the community (school management committees), the PRIs, and the government. As is evident from definition 2(h), the purpose of defining a local authority is to decentralize administrative control by bringing in panchayati raj institutions. However, since differing situations exist in states, the term is flexible and it is left to the state governments to notify an appropriate local authority. For example, Jharkhand continues to be a state where panchayat elections have still not been held, and West Bengal already has a Primary Education Council that it may decide to designate as the local authority. Similarly NE states like Meghalaya have District Councils, which they may want to retain as ‘local authority’.