The Gist of Kurukshetra: May 2014
ACCELERATING PACE OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT-SOME CRITICAL ASPECTS FOR SUCCESS
The Government has been, since country's independence,
formulating policies, programs, projects and schemes and investing signifi cant
fi nancial resources through every Five Year Plan to accelerate the rural
development. All these programs and schemes being implemented by the concerned
ministries and departments of the union and state governments in the area of
education, health, drinking water, sanitation, transport and communication and
supporting infrastructure, among others, have shown varying degree of response
and performance at the grassroots level, and of course, much less than expected
in respect of measureable indicators of human development index. In the context
of India being emerging as a strong economy and committed to bring about a rapid
and sustainable economic growth through various reforms, the rural development
programs must sharply focus on people's participation and rural organizations as
the key attributes for their success accompanied by equally important aspects,
inter alia, concept of integrated development, planning process, Growth Center
Approach, management inputs, communication system and supporting Management
Information System to improve the effectiveness of programs and achieve the
desired objectives of the program.
Concept
The policy and programs of rural development aim at
alleviating rural poverty, generating employment and removing hunger and
malnourishment accompanied by the enrichment of the quality of human life as
refl ected by signifi cantly improved human development index. The problem of
rural development, however, is not merely one of development of rural areas but
of the development of rural communities to dispel ignorance and poverty and
assist the process of creating a self-reliant and self-sustaining, healthy
modern little communities. Rural development can no longer be now identifi ed
with mere increase in country's GDP or even per capita national income. The
increased income is expected to be so distributed as to result in signifi cant
diminution of inequalities of income and wealth and refl ect better human
development index. Every rural family should have its reasonable share in the
generation of the GDP and increasing per capita income.
Integrated Development
The objective of the national policy should be to reconstruct
and develop the rural economy in such a way that income fl owing from the
ownership of productive assets, skills and labor would be distributed more
equitably. It, therefore, focuses the need for building viable rural communities
of functional rural clusters with improved dwellings, dependable and convenient
energy supplies, adequate transport and communication facilities that link it to
the larger world, suitable health and educational facilities, access to credit
and markets, culturally invigorated and no longer compartmentalized by barriers
of castes and feudal distinctions based on land ownership and occupation. In
this process, the concept of integrated development of rural areas acquires
signifi cance and added importance. Integrated development means that the
planning of diverse aspects of development cannot be attempted in isolation
through a project or even a program approach but it is integrated to take
account of their mutual interaction and their linkages, with a view to achieving
the total development of human being and the geographical area, thereby bridging
the rural-urban gap. While endeavoring for the integrated rural development, it
is necessary to understand the specifi c characteristics of rural society which
give rise to the problems of rural development as distinguished from other kinds
of development.
These characteristics mostly relate to the predominance of:
[i] land in production with uneven distribution of land and
other relevant assets
[ii] agriculture and allied activities
[iii] self-employment and family labor among the landowning working force
[iv] underemployment and casual employment among the working force who hire out
their labor for wages
[v] rural income on seasonal factors with consequent uncertainty and wider fl
uctuations in income and
[vi] factors infl uencing low level of development in rural areas as compared to
urban areas which include demand for local non-agricultural goods and services;
capital per capita excluding land; employment of science and technology; energy
and machinery; human resources development in terms of literacy, education,
health and technical as well as managerial skills; development and welfare
services; communication and information; absence
of people's organizations to redress grievances, monitor implementation of
development programs and functioning as pressure groups; lack of adequate power
to take decisions on the part of local offi cials and greater distance from
decisionmaking authorities.
Integrated Rural Development [IRD] envisages the optimum
utilization of the natural, physical and human resources of a given rural area
for the enrichment of the quality of life of its population. Optimum utilization
takes into account not only production of goods and services without
environmental degradation but also their distribution and employment enabling
the rural poor to cross the poverty line. The projects formulated for the
purpose should be such as can maximize their mutual additive impact on each
other and result in a higher than the total sum of its components.
Planning Process
Planning exercise for IRD should consider provision of the
basic institutional conditions necessary for maximization of rural productive
resources, securing/mobilizing mass participation and ensuring equitable
distribution. It is essential that basic pre-conditions for IRD should be a
radical change in land distribution, supply of other productive
income-generating assets and inputs needed for production along with appropriate
machinery for their
equitable distribution and setting up people's communities with the specifi c
purpose of ensuring access to and utilization of developmental facilities by the
rural people. The plan of IRD must seek a maximum share of selfhelp and
self-reliance on the part of rural population. The concept of the welfare which
"governs the national policy of most of the developing countries is built on
grants and subsidies. This concept fails to stimulate self-reliance and leads to
habit of dependence. This, in turn, results in a larger role of the Government
offi cials, power politics and failure to develop local participation. While
rural development cannot do without an infl ow of resources from outside the
area, there is no reason why it should not be accompanied from the outside with
a builtin policy of contributions in kind, if not in cash, from the local benefi
ciaries and subsequent mobilization at source of at least a part of the gains
from the development. The failure to adopt such a policy has resulted in
Community Development Program leading to a revolution in rising expectations
that seek fulfi llment from outside instead of on self-help and reverting to
stagnation when the initial help given from outside stops.
Alleviating Poverty
The Herculean task of alleviating rural poverty cannot be accomplished
through piecemeal effort and in isolation of total development of rural
areas/rural economy.
The entire planning exercise is, therefore, required to be geared up in favor
of
