CHAPTER-III

RURAL DEVELOPMENT APPROACHES

AND STRATEGIES IN INDIA

3.1 INTRODUCTION
3.2 RURAL DEVELOPMENT APPROACHES IN INDIA
3.3 STRATEGIES OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT
3.4 RURAL DEVELOPMENT ADMINISTRATION

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3.1 INTRODUCTION

The term rural development is a subset of the broader term

development. The term rural development connotes overall development of
rural areas with a view to improve the quality of life of the rural poor. In this
sense, it is a comprehensive and multi-dimensional concept, encompassing the
development of agriculture and allied activities, village and cottage industries
including crafts, socio-economic infrastructure, community services and
facilities, and above all, the human resource development in rural areas. As a
phenomenon, rural development is an end result of transactions between
various physical, technological, economic, socio-cultural and institutional
factors. As a strategy, it is designed to improve the economic and social well
being of the specific group of people-the rural poor. As a discipline, it is
multi-disciplinary in nature, representing an intersection of agricultural, social,
behavioral, engineering and management sciences1.

Rural development, as such, is nothing new to the third world countries.

Many developing countries have been practicing or promoting rural
development for a number of years and many of them have achieved significant
success in their efforts. However, rural development has been attracting since
long and special importance and attention is being given by the planners.
Alongside, there has been considerable discussion of the need for and nature of
shift in emphasis and approach called for in rural development in keeping with
the objective of overall development policy for speedy alleviation of poverty.

The concept of rural development was bom in the context of

agriculture, and it remained, for a long time coterminous with agricultural
development in India. The Royal Commission on Agriculture (1928), for
instance provides this kind of interpretation to rural development. To quote
'i

from the report of the Commission : We cannot too strongly state our
conviction that the directorship of agricultural advances must in a very great

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degree depend upon the suitability of the officer appointed. Nearly half a
century later, another committee viewed rural development in more or less
similar way. The Planning Commissions Task Force on Integrated Rural
Development observed in 1972: After careful consideration, we have
belatedly decided to take what might be considered rather restricted view of the
expression rural development. We have chosen to equate it with agricultural
development in the widest sense so as to embrace besides crop, husbandry, and
all the allied activities3.

Since the seventies, the concept of rural development has undergone a

change, and has become more comprehensive. The concept of rural
development, as enunciated by the World Bank, marks such a change. The
World Bank defines 4 - rural development as a strategy designed to improve
the economic and social life of a specific group of people - The rural poor.
Rural development involves extending the benefits of development to the
poorest among those who seek livelihood in the rural areas. The group
includes small-scale farmers, tenants and the land less. To quote from the
World Bank Sector Policy Paper on Rural Development (1975): A national
programme of rural development should include a mix of activities including
projects to raise agricultural output, create new employment, improve health
and education, expand communications and improve housing5.

Components of Rural Development Policy

A policy designed to bring about rural development as defined above,
needs to incorporate the following components.
a) The first component of such a policy may be man and his
environment with an objective of creating skills and appropriate
knowledge so that man can exploit his environment and can expand
his resources for better quality of life.

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 b) The second important conceptual focus has to be on the ecological
setting. Since rural is in contrast to urban and its development may
be proportionate to urban development.
c) The means of production and appropriate technology needs to
constitute the third component of rural development.
d) The building of institutional infrastructure necessary for mobilizing
economic resources and management of men, money and material
resources may be the fourth component of rural development.
e) The fifth important component of rural development is self
reliance, which needs to be brought in through local initiative,
participation and mobilization of existing resources.
f) The last, though not the least, dimension of rural development needs
to focus on distributive justice in so far as the poor segments of the
rural population are concerned.

In short, in formulating the rural development policy the whole approach

has to be fundamental and targeted towards alleviating the rural poor from the
cluster of poverty that has been perpetuated over the ages6.

One may identify a few factors in common without wishing to over

simplify or over-generalize issues of policy and problems of implementation
which are by no means uniform from country to country:
That development approaches tended to over-play quantity and speed
at the expense of equality and composition;
The resources that were in fact committed to rural development were
applied unevenly, that they were appropriated in undue proportion for
the benefit of an elitist minority;
That models of development used, explicitly or implicitly, by planners,
were urban/industry biased, resulting in a neglect of or at least
inadequate attention to the imperatives of rural development;

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 That the bulk of the programme tended to be formulated and
implemented from above, there was little real role for the rural majority
in this process .

Literature on development abounds in a variety of dilemmas and

dogmas, such as rural versus urban development, urban versus industrial
development, primacy of capital versus labour, and natural/autonomous versus
induced/planned development. Here, we are interested in rural-urban
dichotomy, a theme which figures prominently in the literature on development
economics. There are theories8 arguing that relative to urban areas, rural areas
get neglected in the growth process and that rural urban exchange tends to be
unfair to rural areas. There is also another school of thought9 holding the view
that capitalists and market oriented economic process are powerful influences
generating rural underdevelopment and stagnation. As a consequence of these
perceptions, the planners and administrators in the developing economies make
special efforts to device strategies with adequate thrust on the rural areas.

3.2 RURAL DEVELOPMENT APPROACHES IN INDIA

India has gained vast experience in the implementation of rural

development programmes. The approaches to rural development and area
planning have also changed over a period of time10. In the light of the
experience gained by following a particular approach, a new approach has been
evolved. The shift in emphasis is intended not only to accelerate the pace of
growth in the rural sector but to ensure social justice by minimizing wastage
and leakages.

India has a very long history of experimenting with various approaches

to rural development. Even in the pre-independence era, a number of rural
reconstruction experiments were initiated by the nationalist thinkers and social
reformers. Well known among them were the Gurgaon Experiment of

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F.L.Brayne (1920), the Marthandam Experiment of Spencer Hatch (1921), the
Srinikethan Experiment of Poet Rabindranath Tagore (in the 1920s), the
Sevagram Experiment of Mahatma Gandhi (1933), the Firka Development
Scheme (1946), and the Etawah Pilot Project of Albert Mayer (1948)11.
Besides these experiments by social reformers and missionaries, various
departments of the Government-agriculture, cooperative, irrigation, health,
education- also tried in their own way to resolve rural problems falling within
their respective jurisdiction.

Further, Grow More Food campaign was started in 1943 with a view
to augmenting the level of food production through planning and
implementation of short term and long term improvement programmes in
agriculture . Besides, a good number of projects aiming at Community
Development were introduced in different parts of the country.

The next important step was taken by the Kisan Sabha under the
leadership of Godavari Parulekhar in 194513. For the first time, Adivasis raised
slogan against exploitation by landlords, moneylenders and contractors. As a
result, the Minimum Wage Act came into enforcement in 1940s, to safeguard
the interests of Adivasis working for forest contractors. Since 1947, the
Government started to encourage formation of Cooperative Labour Contract
Societies for forest workers.

However, since the beginning of the nineteenth century, quite a few

centres of rural reconstruction were started from time to time in different parts
of the country. These centres made systematic efforts for development of life
and society of specific rural communities and tried to make full use of
technological knowledge.

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Rural Development since Independence
In every country, some development always occurs naturally
(autonomous development) but it may not be sufficient to maintain a socially
desirable level of living in the country 14. Therefore some sort of government
intervention in the economic system is needed in almost every country to
initiate and foster a higher rate of development (induced development). These
days, governments in virtually all countries are engaged in one way or another,
and to a small or large extent, in planning and regulating their economic
activities. However, planning makes a positive contribution only if, through it,
the objectives are achieved more rapidly and more efficiently, than if
development followed natural forces. Planning can contribute to development
mainly through direct provision and allocation of scarce resources by the
government, regulation and direction of resources allocation decisions in the
private sector, coordination of public and private actions, and guiding the use
of private resources through the manipulation of market forces.

Since independence, Government of India has introduced several

programmes to initiate development in rural areas. The planning for rural
development has received utmost attention by the planners and policy makers
along with the national plan for economic development. India adopted both the
centralized and decentralized planning models in the process of its planned
economic development.

The First Five Year Plan (1950-51 to 1955-56), adopted the Harrod-
Domar model of capital accumulation and saving mobilization as its
methodological approach towards planning. Under this approach, the process
of economic development must start from the villages. In order to implement
this ideology, the Community Development Porgamme (CDP) was conceived.
The National Extension Service, started in 1952 by the Government of India
with the establishment of 55 Community Development Programmes, was
extended to cover the entire country by a network of 5,265 Community

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Development Blocks15. The block administration was created as a centre of
rural development activities. This programme failed, as blocks were quite big
and left the weaker sections untouched. It was opined that the resources
available for the programme were too meager compared with the need and
spread.

The Second Five Year Plan (1955-56 to 1960-61) was based on

Feldman -Mahalnobis model of sectoral growth. This strategy emphasized
investment in heavy industries to achieve industrialization, which was assumed
to be the basic condition for rapid economic development. A good deal of
reliance was placed on cottage and small industries with the aim of reducing
rural underemployment, unemployment. As against this background, no
important specialized rural development programme was launched during the
second plan period16. However, steps were taken to strengthen the on going
Community Development Programme. In this respect, the need for viable
institutional base was felt and the Panchayat Raj System was introduced during
the plan period. In addition to this, specialized rural economic development
programmes like Intensive Agricultural District Programme (IADP), Khadi
and Village Industries programme (KVI), Multi purpose Tribal Development,
and Village Housing Projects/Schemes were also introduced in rural areas of
the country.

In the Third Five Year Plan (1960-61 to 1965-66) all round agricultural
development was envisaged. Increased agricultural production in the farm
sector and activities allied to agriculture received top most priority during the
plan period. The important agricultural development programmes bringing
green revolution strategy like Intensive Agricultural Area Development
Programme (IADP) and High Yield Varieties Programme (HYVP) were
implemented in the country. It is observed that, the benefits accrued only to the
rich and progressive peasants . Once again, landless and agricultural labourers
were left untouched.

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 During the Annual Plans (1966-1969), few more programmes were
implemented to achieve all round development. Important programmes like
Farmers Training and Education Programme, Well construction
Programme, Rural works programme (RWP), Tribal Development Block,
Rural Manpower Programme, Composite Programme for Women and
Primary School Children were introduced18.

The Fourth Five Year Plan (1969-74), in the name of Growth with
Social Justice initiated efforts towards uplifting the vulnerable sections of
rural society. The publication of Dandekar and Rath study19 also had a material
impact on the framework. In this connection a number of Area Development
Oriented and Target Oriented programmes were introduced. Programmes
such as Small Farmers Development Agency (SFDA), Marginal Farmers and
Agricultural Labourers Development Agency (MFAL), Drought Prone Area
Programme (DPAP), Tribal Area Development Programme (TADP) were
introduced as the important rural development programmes. These rural
development programmes did succeed, but only in limited areas and numbers20.
This plan paved the path for a number of rural development and poverty
alleviation programmes in the country. These programmes were implemented
through the existing administrative apparatus at block and village levels.
Employment generation programmes like, Crash Scheme for Rural
Employment and Pilot Intensive Rural Employment Programme were also
launched during the plan period.

The Fifth Five Year Plan (1974-79), based on the Inter-sectoral

transactions model of Leontif, which has emphasized the strengthening the
inter-sectoral linkages for balanced growth in sectors21. The most important
objectives of the Fifth Plan period was; i) removal of poverty and ii)
achievement of self-reliance. In order to attain these objectives, the
programmes, like, Command Area Development Programme (CADP), Hill
Area Development programmes (HADP), Minimum Needs Programme

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(MNP), Food for work programme (FFW) were introduced during the plan
period. In addition to this, in order to promote small scale, village and cottage
industries, the District Industrial Centres (DICs) were set up in all the districts
of the country. The 20-point Economic programme was also introduced during
the said plan period.

The Sixth Five Year Plan22 (1980-85), aimed at the removal of poverty,
growth, modernization, self-reliance and social justice. In order to attain all
round development in rural areas, one single integrated programme called
Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP) was conceived. The
programme has been in operation since 1978-79 and has been made the
centrepiece of the anti-poverty strategy in the Sixth Five Year Plan. IRDP is
regarded as a multi-level, multi-sector and multi-section concept of rural
development. As a multi-level concept, it encompasses rural development at
various levels such as viable cluster of village communities, districts and
blocks. As a multi-sector concept, it embraces development in various sectors
and sub-sectors of the rural areas such as agriculture, industry, education,
health and transportation etc. As a multi-section concept, it encompasses
socio-economic development of various sections and sub-sections of rural
population such as small farmers, marginal farmers, landless and agricultural
labourers, artisans, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Besides IRDP,
employment generation programmes like, National Rural Employment
Programme (NREP), Rural Land less Employment Guarantee Programme
(RLEGP), Economic Rehabilitation of Rural Poor (ERRP), Training of Rural
Youth for Self-Employment (TRYSEM), Self-Employment for the Educated
Unemployed Youth (SEEVY), Development of Women and Children in Rural
Areas (DWCRA) etc., were also introduced during the said plan period.

The important objectives of the Seventh Five Year Plan23 (1985-90)

were; building an independent self-reliant economy, establishment of social
system based on equity and justice, reduction of regional imbalance and

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adoption of advanced technologies. The plan intended to continue the rural
development programmes launched during the Sixth Five Year Plan. In
addition to this, some rural infrastructural development programmes like,
Indira Awaz Yojan (IAY), Integrated Rural Energy Planning Programme
(IREP), Jawahar Rozgar Yojana (JRY), and Million Wells Scheme (MWS) etc;
were implemented as the special rural development programmes during the
plan period.

In the Eighth Five Year Plan24 (1992-97), generation of adequate

employment opportunities, universalisation of elementary education, provision
of safe drinking water and primary health care facilities, and strengthening the
infrastructures etc; were the important objectives. In order to strengthen the
earlier employment generation programmes the new and culmination
programmes like, Intensified Jawahar Rozgar Yojan (IJRY), Employment
Assurance Scheme (EAS), Operation Black Board (OBB), and District Primary
Education Programme (DPEP) were introduced.

The Ninth Five Year Plan25 (1997-2002), aimed at generating

employment opportunities in the secondary sector, all-round development of
agricultural sector, strengthening the rural economy through the development
of agro-based industries, small-scale village and cottage industries and
elimination of poverty. As against these objectives, the programmes for self-
employment, and supplementary wage employment along with other
programmes were intended to continue during the Ninth Plan with some
modifications. These important antipoverty programmes include the IRDP,
TRYSEM, JRY, IAY, IJRY, DPAP and EAS etc. The IRDP, DWCRA,
TRYSEM, MWS were in operation till the end of 1998-99. It was felt that, this
fragmented approach with a multiplicity of schemes was not able to focus on
the needs of the rural poor in a coherent manner17. Hence these schemes were
amalgamated by the Government of India and merged into a single new scheme
called Swamajayanthi Gram Swarojgar Yojana (SGSY) with effect from 1-4-

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1999. In order to create an adequate infrastructural development, the Jawahar
Gram Samridhi Yojana (JGSY) was also implemented on the same date.

Rural development strategy has to change according to the changing

requirement of the community. Accordingly, in the Xth Five Year Plan26
(2002-07), the government has launched participatory strategy to promote
rural development. Provision has been made to expand economic and social
opportunity for individuals and groups by encouraging greater participation in
decision making. At present we have the Swamajayanthi Gram Swarozgar
Yojana, which has replaced the earlier programmes like IRDP, TRYSEM, etc.
It is a single self-employment programme for the rural poor. In addition to this
to mitigate unemployment problem prevailing in the rural economy, the
Government of India has launched Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme.
Due attention has been given to develop rural infrastructure and rural health.
Gram Sadak Yojan and National Rural Health Mission are the other important
programmes in existence under this plan.

3.3 STRATEGIES OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT

All the plan strategies for rural development are based on various
approaches. A review of various rural development programmes and policies
followed in India after independence reveal different strategies of development.
They are discussed below:

The Multi-purpose Strategy

Rural Development approach in India started with the multi-purpose
approach. The Community Development programme (CDP), started in 1952,
was aimed at developing to the fullest extent, the material and human resources
of an area through the co-operative efforts of the people and the active help of
the state. It was essentially an educational and an organizational process since

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it concerned itself with changing those attitudes and practices, which were
obstacles to social and economic improvement27

The rationale of the approach was that all the aspects of rural life are
inextricably interlinked with each other. The activities of CDP included
agriculture, animal husbandry, irrigation, cooperation, village and small-scale
industries, health and sanitation, education, communication and housing etc.
The programme as a whole was to converge on the totality of human
development; therefore, the destination of the Community Development
programme was man.

After sometime, it was felt that the C.D. Programme was too diffused to
give concrete results, and due to limited finances, a multi-pronged attack was
not possible and certain priorities had to be drawn up to solve the problem of
food shortage. A more specific limited-purpose approach was considered to be
the way out.

Growth Oriented Strategy

This is based on the philosophy that rural people, like any other people,
are rational decision makers, who, when given adequate opportunity and a
proper environment, will try to maximize their incomes. The critical
assumption of this strategy is that the benefits of increased production will
gradually trickle down to the poor. The regulation and coordination of the
activities of the private and public agencies is primarily through market
mechanisms. This paradigm formed the basis of the predominant agricultural
development strategy of the 1960s, when programmes like the Intensive
Agriculture District Programme (IADP), the Intensive Cattle Development
Programme (ICDP), the High Yielding Varieties Programme (HYVP), were
launched. This strategy led to Green Revolution in India. But, this approach
helped only the richer farmers in the rural areas, so its utility was limited and

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 A

the green revolution failed to bring any greenery to the rural poor who
continued to remain pale29.

Target Group Strategy

In this approach, a particular group is taken up for studies and plan
priorities are accordingly modified30. Recognizing that the small
farmers/marginal farmers and landless agricultural labourers problems are
different to those of the bigger ones, separate programmes like the
SFDA/MFAL were started for their development. The Antyodaya Schemes
(betterment of the last in line) is a target approach. This approach produced a
client-oriented design and the ultimate goal is to transfer all the responsibilities
of planning and development to the clientele themselves.

Area Development Strategy

Under this strategy, emphasis is laid on the development of the
backward regions. The area development approach presumes that the growth
centres have an even geographical spread effect and that the benefits of
development percolate to spread effect and that the benefits of development
percolate to the lower levels over a period of time. Under this strategy, a
pinpointed area is taken for development. A backward area is identified for
concentrated efforts, such as Drought Prone Area Programme (DPAP), Tribal
Area Development Programme (TADP), Command Area Development
Programme (CADP), Hill Area Development Programme etc, which comes
under this approach. This approach has three major potential dangers:
1. The schemes may concentrate a disproportionate share of the
resources on providing benefits to a group that is relatively small in
relation to the over all size of the national target group.
2. The schemes tend to suffer from a programme design that is too
ambitious and complex, calling for exceptional leadership that
cannot always be made available on a sustained basis.

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 3. There may be distorted priorities in the allocation of resources
among sectors. The success of this approach depends upon the
removal of these three basic constraints31.

Spatial Planning Strategy

The need for appropriately locating all the special programmes in their
respective fields, the induction of production plans, the full employment
schemes and the supply of basic needs of the rural population, all demand that
the plan formulation and implementation strategy should be rural oriented. In
the Fifth Plan, multi level planning was very much emphasized and it was
argued that since more intimate, precise and detailed knowledge about
physico-geographical, techno-economic, socio-political and organizational
administrative conditions is available for planning activities which have strong
local foci is more fruitfully undertaken at the district level, therefore, under this
approach, progress was too slow, owing to a number of other factors affecting
the national plan formulation . The paucity of the techniques and the weakness
in conceptualizing area-level-improvement in the national context, led to the
compilation of all the visualized needs as a district plan. Generally, the
attempts ended up in a desegregation of the state plan allocation district-wise
and department-wise. Now, block plans are advocated not as the best for rural
development unless all the programmes are related to a spatial level and the
projects included as a part of the block plan, a well-meaning and well
synchronized rural plan of action will become difficult. The approach was to
bring under close action strategies relevant to the acceleration of integrated area
development around potential growth centers but the scheme was not pursued
beyond the pilot stage. Spatial planning in India, is at the cross roads and the
efforts made so far can at best be said to be half-hearted, sporadic and often self
defeating .

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Integrated or Holistic Strategy
It has been realized that development should be an integrated one. This
is possible when sectoral development programmes, human resources
development programmes, social welfare schemes and infrastructural
development progrmmes33 are brought within the framework of a prospective
plan for implementation, where each programme reinforces the other through
linkages.

Integrated Strategy combines all the positive features of the earlier

strategies, and is designed to simultaneously achieve the goals of growth,
welfare, equity, and community participation. This paradigm takes a very
comprehensive but integrated view of the basic problems of poverty,
unemployment and inequality, and seeks to address the physical, economic,
technological, social, motivational, organizational and political bases of these
problems. The multiple goals of this strategy are sought to be achieved by
building the capacity of the community to involve itself in development in
partnership with the government. The anti-poverty programmes launched in
India in the 1970s, particularly the IRD programme, National Rural
Employment Progrmme and Training of Rural Youth for Self-Employment
were intended to follow this paradigm.

It has been rightly observed by John.P.Lewis: A serviceable rural

development programme in India must deal with the several aspects of the rural
economy in an integrated fashion. An isolated agricultural development effort
unrelated and unsupported by other kinds of rural policies would be doomed to
failure almost surely 34. On account of IRD programmes, the number of
persons living below the poverty line has been considerably reduced; still,
however, much remains to be done for these poverty-stricken people.

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Participatory Strategy
During the last two decades several new approaches like top-down
planning, planning from below, bottom up planning, micro level
planning, and multi-level planning have been thought of in the context of
involving the people in every phase of development. In the current plan (Xth
Five Year Plan), the government has devised participatory strategy to promote
rural development. Provision has been made to expand economic and social
opportunity for individuals and groups by encouraging greater participation in
decision making. Right now we have the Swamajayanthi Gram Swarozgar
Yojana, which has replaced the earlier programmes like IRDP, TRYSEM, etc.
It is a single self-employment programme for the rural poor35.

The various programmes and strategies that have been examined by the
experts confirm that no single package or formula is sufficient for effective
rural development. Mere extension of approaches and strategies which are far
from reality would not serve the purpose and a major re-thinking is required to
develop rural India. The entire strategy calls for adaptation, modification, and
experimentation, depending upon the exigencies of the situation in our country.

3.4 RURAL DEVELOPMENT ADMINISTRATION

Indian policy makers have been emphasizing upon the need of rural
development ever since the advent of planning process in the country. The
ultimate objective of rural development administration is the eradication of
poverty and thus improving the quality of life of the masses. The rural
development administration is no doubt a complex task, controlled and
governed by multiple factors and actors. The complete understanding of the
rural development process, identification of problems, and recognition of the
casual factors and explanation of the effects are a pre-condition to promote and
-1/

guarantee development in favour of rural poor . The role of multiple actors

like technical experts, planners, administrators, project implementors/

94
executors, evaluators, politicians and policy makers are crucial and vital in
making the programme either a success or a failure in the long run as the rural
development programmes are conceptualized, interpreted and operationalised
by these actors.

Rural Development is a multi-dimensional phenomenon. Close

examination of rural development administration in India reveals that, there are
many agencies such as the Government, Corporate Sector, Cooperatives, Self-
Help Groups, Voluntary Agencies and NGOs are involved in this process. It is
essential to know about the existing change in the role played by the agents
who deliver goods and services for the rural poor. According to the changing
requirements of the society, development administrators experimented new
strategies and approaches to accelerate rural development in India.

Development administration refers to the structure, organization and

organizational behavior necessary for the implementation of the schemes and
programmes of socio-economic and political change undertaken by the
Government37. Organization and Administrative procedures, therefore, are an
integral aspect of development programmes. Sanwal observes, development
administration is a complex process; partly this is because we are all still
experimenting with policy mixes, competing programmes and conflicting
organizational firms, partly this is because, the activities require peoples
participation and their diversity adds to the complexity, partly because, best
results can be achieved only with the integration of a number of programmes
which requires linkages and a degree of planning for which facilities do not
exist in the area.38 Edward Weidner has defined development administration
as an action oriented, goal-oriented, administrative system.39

After independence, certain changes were effected in the administrative

system with a view to reorient it to meet the needs of development. Various
institutions have been created to help the rural poor. But whether they are

95
germane to the rural environment or not is the real issue. Institution building
demands a clear and definite policy and a master strategy in the context of the
particular social action for creating viable institutions40. A sustained effort to
make them work and grow is also essential.

Social scientists in the area focus their deliberations and

recommendations primarily on review and restructuring of administrative
arrangements for more effective implementation of rural development and anti
poverty programmes41. India continues to face the problems of unemployment
and poverty even after five decades of state-initiated development efforts. The
complexities and ill effects of the past development models call for a multi
dimensional, people centered rural development to meet the diversity of
poverty in the poor and marginalized groups42.

The past five decades witnessed the evolution of many development

strategies and theories. Of them, two main trends have emerged in practice43.
The first is where development starts with the outsiders providing some
goods or services, which a community may or may not need. This approach is
fundamentally about the delivering of resources, which come in various guises
like finance, equipment, technical know-how, skills, even a particular approach
to life etc. This, also known as top-down approach to development is still
prevalent. The second one is people centered or bottom-up approach to
development. This approach focuses on the needs of the people. They define
the goals of development and participate in development projects from the
beginning44.

Several methods, strategies and approaches have emerged during the

1970s, 80s and 90s placing people as the prime actors in the process of
development45. The Sixth Five Year Plan observed that representation of local
credit, education, and voluntary agencies on program implementing broadly
would facilitate coordination and encourage wider public participation, and

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also will serve to strengthen the analytical capabilities of rural development
agencies.

All evidences indicate that, in the changing scenario of economic

development, top-down approach led by the government has not much role to
play in rural development administration. There is a strong argument in favour
of local initiation and enterprise in mobilizing local development projects. This
led to the emergence of Voluntary Organizations, Non Governmental
Organizations, Self-Help Groups, Cooperatives, in the process of rural
development administration. The Ministry of Rural Development is planning to
increasingly associate voluntary agencies with every stage of plan formulation
and plan implementation particularly in the administration of anti-poverty
programmes.

In short, all the development experts and workers have come to a

unanimous conclusion that, development cannot be sustainable and long lasting
unless people are made a part and parcel of the development process. In this
context, it is essential to examine the role played by the Voluntary Agencies
and Non Government Organizations in the process of rural development.

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References
1. Singh Katar, Rural Development Principles, Practice and
Management Sage Publications, New Delhi,( 1998), pp.21-22
2. Report of The Royal Commission on Agriculture, Government of
India, New Delhi, (1928).
3. Government of India, The Planning Commissions Task Force on
Integrated Rural Development, Government of India, New Delhi,
(1972).
4. Deb.K, Rural Development in India since Independence, Sterling
Publishers Pvt. Ltd; New Delhi, (1986).
5. Report of, Rural Development Sector Policy Paper of World Bank,
February, Washington, (1975).
6. Dhingra I.C, Rural Economics, Sultan Chand and Sons Publishers,
New Delhi, (1988).
7. Training Strategies for Integrated Rural Development, Asian and
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