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Rural development policies and programmes in India

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 Content

  1. Introduction
  2. Nehru’s Vision of Village and Rural Development
  3. Rural Development Policies: A Brief History 
  4. Rural Development Policies and Programmes: A Critique
  5. Summary

Introduction

The rural populations in India have benefited relatively little from the growth and development taking place in the "shining" enclaves because they are a small part of the country's overall economy. After six decades of independence, agricultural growth is still sluggish, farmers are still living in poverty, the poor prefer stagnant cities over rural villages, and there aren't enough basic services like hospitals and schools for the rural populations. In a nutshell, programs for rural development have mostly been unproductive. However, together with marketization, technical advancement, and the politicking of the people, these policies have given rural areas access to new opportunities and risks. However, increased funding and higher priorities for agricultural and rural development won't be effective until the flaws in the way policy is now being made are found and fixed.

Nehru’s Vision of Village and Rural Development

Being the country's first prime minister after gaining independence and having a significant impact on the formation of its policies and programs, Nehru is significant. His opinions on how India's rural areas should be developed also reveal how he views village life in India. Perhaps the best expression of his views on traditional Indian society can be found in his well-known book, Discovery of India (first published in 1946). Although Nehru took a chronological approach to studying Indian history, it appears that he viewed the "ancient" social structure of Indian society from an evolutionary standpoint. This is especially true when he talks about caste and village. "The independent village community, caste, and the joint family," which he described as the three fundamental ideas of the "ancient Indian social system," shared common organizing principles with traditional societies worldwide.

He supported the common view that village society was democratically run but had remained economically stagnant due to the village panchayats and political spirit of the traditional Indian village. In contrast to their rights, the old social system placed more emphasis on "the duties of the individual and the group." But he also made clear that a system of village republics had long since degraded into a society plagued by a number of evils. Nehru's discussion of village life clearly changed as he got more into modern times. He seems to have grown more and more critical of historical structures, especially caste-based hierarchies, which in his view should not exist in contemporary countries. Therefore, he could not see any benefits in restoring the old social structure.

As we move on to his observations and writings on colonial-era Indian rural society, this transition becomes even more clear. He started to talk more and more about the existing social and economic structures of the village life in terms of "social classes," in addition to being more critical of the established social order. He often referred to the two classes of people: landowners and peasants/kisans. His essays unmistakably exhibit a modernist perspective on the class system in the town. For instance, he saw the landlords as a class that had "outlived their day" and was "physically and mentally decrepit." On the other hand, the true Indian masses were the peasants, also known as "the kisans, in the countryside."

Nehru sought to use modern technologies and alter agrarian ties to change the social and economic makeup of the village. In his view, landlords and landlordism will not exist in an independent India. Following independence, land reform initiatives were directly translated from this way of thought. Additionally, he condemned the growers for "using old methods" and for being "happy with whatever little they produced" rather than praising their traditionalist tendencies. He believed that farmers benefit from contemporary technology. If they learned new farming practices, they may produce twice as much or three times as much as they did previously.

In addition, Nehru believed that industrialization was inevitable. He believed that urbanization and industrial growth would lessen the strain on the land, which would benefit everyone still living in the village. He did feel that handicrafts and cottage industries needed to be revived, though. He was aware that, regardless of how quickly it developed, modern industry could not accommodate the entire excess population and that the bulk of people would need to work mostly in agriculture. He therefore strongly backed the concept of the village and cottage industry.

Rural Development Policies: A Brief History

Community Development Programme

Rural development wasn't given top focus till after Independence. The Directive Principles of State Policy, found in Part IV of the Constitution, set forth goals in this regard. The Community Development Program was designed using the experiences learned from the pilot projects in Etawah (U. P.), Nilokheri, and Faridabad (Haryana). Likewise, the Grow More Food Enquiry Committee's suggestions did. According to the first five-year plan, "Community Development" is the strategy and "Rural Extension" is the organization used to get the process of changing the social and economic climate of the villages started. The first five-year plan included the Community Development Program (CDP), which was launched in 1952. It was a multifaceted, all-encompassing program that stood for an integrated strategy for rural development. It served as a strategy for community education and mobilization since it required local communities to set priorities, establish programs, come up with answers, and work hard to put them into action within the broad framework of national programs that were announced at the national level. A third party, whether governmental or not, would help the community during this process.

At the central level, the CDP was given to the administrator-led Community Projects Administration, which was established inside the Planning commission. Although the CDP was designed and funded by the central government, implementation was handled by the state's development commissioner, who also served as a coordinator because the CDP covered multiple departments. The collector served as the district's administrative head, and the block administration was made up of the block-level officer, extension employees, village-level workers (VLWs), and support staff. The 55 community projects, each covering around 300 village communities, served as the CDP's operational machinery. By October 1963, the National Extension Service had covered all of rural India. It was discovered that CDP had a severe flaw by the late 1950s. It remained to be not simply officially motivated self-help but a government program operated by bureaucrats rather than promoting self-motivated, "self-help." People were sidetracked since there was a predominance of concern for economic progress, and specialists took center stage. It was no longer a program for the people, but rather a bureaucratic mobilization to achieve goals established by the centralized planning. Regular evaluation of rural development's progress based on the CDP resulted in adjustments in both directions. First, the emphasis shifted to economic growth, particularly agricultural production. The second was the expansion of public engagement in favor of democratic decentralization.

Panchayati Raj Institutions 

The Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI), a system of democratic institutions with three tiers and elected officials at the village, block, and district levels, were created. The public institutions were given power over the decentralized development administration machinery. Although it was hailed as a political revolution that brought democracy to the people's doorsteps and guaranteed their involvement in developmental activities, there is still uncertainty about the concept itself. In addition, the effectiveness of these institutions' administrative systems must be considered while evaluating them. Herein is the problem. Within five years, PRIs started to plateau and then started to drop. In the 1980s, attempts were undertaken to reconstruct the trend and inspire people to take purposeful action.

The bureaucracy is powerful and in charge here, much like with the CDPs, but the public's voice is weak and frequently muzzled. It is not unexpected that PRIs have been referred to as caricatures of local administration given the amount of political factionalism, corruption, incompetence, casteism, and parochialism. A formalized framework for rural development is panchayati raj. Development and democracy are consequently its two main goals. In truth, it aims to achieve democracy through development or at the very least, a balance between the demands of development and the demands of democracy. Due to its constitutional obligation to oversee rural development, the state government frequently merely wants to delegate rather than decentralize. Therefore, it sees Panchayati Raj as primarily its own organization that functions in the background and under its command. On the administrative front, the failure could be attributed to power-cum-development politics as well as overly concentrated bureaucratic management.

Agriculture and Allied Activities 

Recall that the Ford Foundation requested the first team of American experts to submit their report on "India's Food Crisis and Steps to Meet it" in 1959. It advocated concentrating efforts in areas where gains will be the highest. In order to increase food production, a new agricultural plan was therefore envisioned. The second team contributed to the creation of the Intensive Agricultural District Programme (IADP), which served as the new strategy's administrative framework, through its report from 1963. The IADP, which was to be implemented in one district in each state, was included in the third plan. The Intensive Agricultural Areas Programme, which was created in 1964, expanded the IADP concept to other districts (IAAP). Like the CDP, the IADP also failed in its expanded and diluted form as the IAAP. The need for food became more urgent given the drought conditions. In order to increase farm productivity, G. Subramaniam, the Union Food and Agricultural Minister (1964–1967), developed a New Agricultural Strategy. The IAAP included agricultural scientists, and agricultural institutions and research facilities were established.

These initiatives, it was asserted, brought about the Green Revolution. However, there were administrative flaws. The Village Level Workers lacked the necessary time or motivation, while the BDO lacked the necessary training or expertise. Lack of delegation of sufficient financial and administrative authority to lower level authorities will inevitably result in delays in execution, dissatisfaction of beneficiaries, and demoralization of functionaries. However, the IADP did bring science and technology closer to the farmers and led to a shift in how they perceived agriculture. There are regional and class disparities as a result of the agricultural strategy of concentrating inputs in particular locations. Benefits did not reach the true poor, causing tensions and confrontations in the rural areas. Naxalism was and still is a virulent expression of agrarian unrest. The fourth Plan (1969–1974) committed to pursue progress while upholding social justice in light of this experience. According to the All India Rural Credit Review Committee from 1969: "The resulting social and economic tensions may not only disrupt the processes of orderly and peaceful change in the rural economy, but may even frustrate the national effort to maintain agricultural production if the benefits of development continue to be denied to large segments of the rural community while prosperity accrues to some. The Union Government created two programs as a result: one for small farmers and the other for "sub marginal" farmers and agricultural laborers. The Small Farmers' Development Agency (SFDA) and the Marginal Farmers and Agricultural Labourers Agency (MFLA) respectively served as the administrative frameworks for the former. By diagnosing their problems, developing appropriate programs, and creating the requisite institutional, budgetary, and administrative arrangements for their implementation, the agencies' primary goal was to increase the earning potential of the target populations.

The Drought Prone Areas Programme (DPAP) of the 1970s was intended to address regional balances, much like SFDA, which was one of the programs, to address class inequalities. The DPAP's initial goal was to create employment possibilities, placing a special emphasis on labor-intensive projects. Since 1972, development projects have been its main priority. The District Rural Development Agency (DRDA), whose head is the district collector, is charged with overseeing the administration of the DPAP and its sister initiative, the Desert Development Programme (DDP). It was feared that the DPAP and DDP would suffer as a result of the DRDA's focus on its anti-poverty program package. The Task Force was concerned in 1982 that, "A technology-based program may occasionally be neglected if a single machinery is tasked with carrying out the IRDP/DDP since it is forced to make bad concessions in such situations.

Anti-Poverty Programmes

In the first three Plans, greater production was emphasized in order to amass a sizable investible surplus through the plan procedure. Because it was recognized that the benefits of growth did not trickle down to the underprivileged, the focus of the fourth Plan was turned to these areas. How to attain rapid growth while upholding distributive justice was the fundamental issue. Numerous programs were developed using the "region based" and "target group" methodology. The sixth Plan (1974–1979) acknowledged that, in addition to crop production, all related activities should be included in rural development, which should be understood to include agricultural development in its broadest sense. The integration of all pertinent programs affecting enhanced agricultural output and decreased unemployment should be a part of this integrated development on both a spatial and functional level. During the fifth Plan, the Minimum Needs Programme was widely put into action.

The primary goal of the sixth Plan (1980–1985) was to reduce rural poverty because it was discovered that small and marginal farmers, who make up more than 70% of landowners, only owned 24% of the land and that the top 10% owned up to 51% of the assets, while the bottom 40% owned just 2.1%. 9 Beginning in the 1950s, the land reform initiative had not advanced. Regional disparities were obvious, and poverty was pervasive and unsettling. So, in October 1980, the Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP) was launched. It merged past rural development programs that frequently ran concurrently in the same region and for the same target audience. Due to the territorial overlap and various funding methods, there were issues with monitoring and accounting. Additionally, programs like the Rural Landless Employment Guarantee Program (RLEGP) and the National Rural Employment Program (NREP) were launched.

The 1980s' anti-poverty initiatives can be divided into two groups. These are the programs that create independent work, such as the IRDP, and programs that provide wages, such as the NREP from 1980 and the RLEGP from 1983. 1989–1990 saw the union of NREP and RLEGP under the auspices of Jawahar Rozgar Yojana (JRY). Many of the strategies and programs mentioned above for rural development have since been repackaged in successive five-year plans. They can currently be generally divided into:
  • Affirmative action by way of reservations for scheduled castes and tribes in elected bodies, public sector jobs and educational institutions supplemented by special programmes, with earmarked allocations, for their development and welfare. 
  • Programmes (notably IRDP, TRYSEM, DWACRA) designed to help poor segments to acquire or add to their productive assets and enable them to make more productive use of such assets. 
  •  Various special programmes to provide additional employment to the poor. 
  • Schemes to ensure that all villages have access to a minimum standard of educational and health facilities, safe drinking water and roads. 
  • Various forms of direct transfers by pension and insurance schemes for aged, disabled and widows, school feeding and child nutrition programmes and subsidized distribution of food grains and other essential commodities to the poor. 
  • Special programmes for the development of production potential for hill tracts, deserts and drought prone areas.
The central government, which defines the criteria for allocation between states, is primarily responsible for the conception and funding of these programs. Guidelines (often extremely extensive) about the scope and content of schemes, as well as their targeting and implementation processes, are left up to the state government agencies for actual implementation. Only a select few have been adopted wholly at the initiative of states (notable examples include the Maharashtra Employment Guarantee Scheme and Tamil Nadu's Midday Meals Program for schoolchildren).

Rural Development Policies and Programmes: A Critique 

The effectiveness of rural development policies and programs and their effects on the underprivileged have garnered a lot of attention throughout the years. Numerous studies have highlighted both their strengths and flaws, some of which were conducted under the direction of the government and many others which were based on independent surveys, microstudies, and evaluations of the available macrodata. The incredibly free and open discussion of the flaws in specific plans, the relative merits of various interventions, and proposals for restructuring and reorientation is a good and wholesome trait. However, they have also faced harsh criticism.

The number of beneficiaries, works completed, additions to productive assets, and jobs generated according to official claims are inflated and unreliable. The significant percentage of non-poor and other ineligible people among the beneficiaries reflects inadequate targeting. There are many leakages as a result of improper work, ineffective implementation, and corruption. The assets developed or supplied under these programs are of poor quality, and it is uncertain how they will affect the beneficiaries' income levels. The requirements and possibilities of specific regions or groups are usually not met by the assets and plans. Little consideration is given to target groups and local communities in general when making decisions and putting plans into action.

Accountability issues continue to be a big issue. These programs' organization, content, and funding mostly remain under the control of the federal government. There is a significant amount of overlap between these plans and the development plans that are a part of the standard state plans. Typically, a different agency with its own line structure and independent operations oversees the administration of each program. These characteristics lead to scheme duplication and fragmentation when combined with the strictness of centralized directives. Both coordination and monitoring of results in terms of targeting effectiveness, actual work quality, and beneficiary impact are challenging.

Instead of guaranteeing that they are used to increase productive capacity for obtaining a greater level of employment and income on a consistent basis, the programs frequently place an emphasis on loans and subsidies as well as the provision of current wage employment. At the political and administrative levels, there is a lot of room for patronage and corruption in the selection of beneficiaries, the disbursement of loans and subsidies, and the recovery of loans.

The public distribution system's (PDS) stated goal of providing basic consumer items to the underprivileged at affordable costs is not achieved. There is just not enough of a distribution network in many areas of the nation (especially in the states with the highest concentration of poor people) to get the goods to where they are most needed. The coverage is not just for the underprivileged in states with such networks (Kerala, West Bengal, and Tamil Nadu). Political opposition and administrative challenges have made it difficult to ensure effective targeting. It is being questioned whether PDS is effective in reducing poverty and whether sustaining it in its current form is desirable. Supporters of PDS, who view it as a crucial tool for guaranteeing food security for the poor, vehemently disagree with this recommendation although acknowledging the necessity to restructure the program.

These well-known and well-documented shortcomings have damaged the reputation of rural poverty reduction strategies and programs. Critics contend that the successful contribution of these programs to long-term poverty reduction is not proportional to the resources invested in them, both overtly and more implicitly. that the nation cannot afford this luxury given the high level of fiscal imbalances and the significant lack of resources for infrastructure expenditures necessary for overall growth.

Summary 

During the early stages of India's planning period, rural development policies and programs were primarily influenced by Nehru's opinions of Indian villages and his vision of rural development. This vision's main focuses were on revitalizing cottage industries, reforming agrarian relations through land reforms, and boosting agricultural output through the application of modern technologies.

Government and administrative involvement in development was the focus of many rural development policies, as was the implementation of CDPs. But when political and administrative corruption became more prevalent, it gave rise to the notion of democratic decentralization, which aimed to meet the demands that people believed were unmet. PRIs were consequently introduced as tools for directing rural development programs. In addition, numerous programs to combat poverty were launched to properly develop rural India. As part of rural development policy, numerous new programs have been introduced over the years and old programs have been revised in the next five-year plans.

However, a lot of these programs have come under fire for their implementation's inefficiency for a number of different reasons. Some of these include a high percentage of non-poor and other ineligible people among the beneficiaries; leakages caused by inappropriate works; ineffective implementation and high levels of corruption; poor quality assets provided or created under these programs and their impact on beneficiaries' income levels; assets and schemes frequently inappropriate to the needs and potentials of specific regions or groups; minimal consultation with local communities generally.

Reference

  1. Gopal, S. (1973). Selected Works of Jawaharlal, Vol. 5 (Old Series). New Delhi: Orient Longman. 
  2. Jodhka, S. S. (2002). Nation and Village: Images of Rural India in Gandhi, Nehru and Ambedkar. Economic and Political Weekly, 37(32), 3343–3353. 
  3. Misra, B. B. (1983). District Administration and Rural Development. Delhi: Oxford University Press. 
  4. Pinto, M. R. (1992). Rural Development and Bureaucracy in India. The Indian Journal of Political Science, 53(3), 279–296. 
  5. Radhakrishna, R. & Ray, S. (Eds.). (2005). Oxford Handbook of Poverty in India: Perspectives, Policies and Programmes. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
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