MA PLS203(B) Topic - 7 _ MA 2nd Semester.pptx

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1. Rural Development Administration in India: Origin and Growth, Rural Development Bureaucracy and State-The Role of ICT For MA 2 nd Semester (Dept. of Political Science) Course No. PLS 203 (B) Topic -7 Prepared By: Dr. Eyasin Khan Assistant Professor, Dept. of Political Science

2. Introduction The term rural development connotes overall development of rural areas with a view to improve the quality of life of rural people. In this sense, it is comprehensive and multidimensional concept, and encompasses the development of agriculture and allied activities; village and cottage industries; crafts, socio-economic infrastructure, community services and facilities and, above all, the human resources in rural areas. Rural development can be conceptualized as a process, a phenomenon, a strategy and a discipline. As a process, it implies the engagement of individuals, communities and nations in pursuit of their cherished goals over time. As a phenomenon, rural development is the end result of interactions 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 a specific group of people, that is, the rural poor. Rural development administration aims to facilitate rural poor.

3. Rural Development Administration: Origin and Growth Rural Development is a comprehensive concept embracing within its fold all aspects and facets of life in rural areas. Conceptually speaking, its contents, as evolved in India, flow from two sources. One, land reform policy and two, rural development strategy. Village development schemes had been introduced in India since the twenties and the efforts of Rabindra Nath Tagore at Sriniketan , of Hatch at Martandam and of Brayne in Gurgaon are all well known. Above all, Mahatma Gandhi was singularly devoted to schemes for village upliftment and his followers disseminated his message all over the country. All of them were undoubtedly laudable attempts but there was hardly any continuity in them; no scheme acquired deep enough roots so as to be able to survive and flourish once the leader was gone. All these schemes were premised on self-help and mutual cooperation on the part of the villagers.

4. Continued The administrative machinery entrusted with programmes of rural development was the regular, existing one. More precisely, it was the existing revenue administration machinery which was put in charge of rural development programmes and into which some new functionaries were injected. The decision to make the colonially designed administrative system the instrument of rural development is likely to surprise those acquainted with the history of the freedom movement in India. India’s present administrative system is inherited from the colonial rulers, and it is this structure which is entrusted with the functions and responsibilities of rural development; of course, with a few modifications grafted on.

5. Innovations in Rural Development Administration The most striking administrative innovations made by rural development, right at the beginning, were principally three: development block as the unit of administration, village level worker as the joint agent of all, and development commissioner as the coordinating functionary at the state level.

6. The Constitution and Rural Development A discussion on rural development must necessarily begin with a mention of the constitutional framework within which it operates. Rural development is the direct responsibility of the states in India, the central government’s role being indirect except in the Union Territories. In India, it is the central government which has consistently provided professional leadership, drive and even momentum to rural development.

7. Structure of the Rural Development Administration

8. Administrative Machinery at the centre The range and intensity of the central government’s interest in rural development is most impressive by any account. A full fledged Ministry of Rural Development was set up in 1979. Earlier it had the status of a department in the central Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation. The Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation. The Ministry of Rural Development is the nodal ministry in the area of rural poverty, particularly among the small and marginal farmers, landless labour , and rural artisans. Its charge includes land reforms, village and cottage industries, rural roads, town and country planning in rural areas, elementary and adult education, rural electrification, rural water supply, housing for landless rural people and nutrition programmes . Besides, it coordinates the various components of rural development programmes for the rural poor including scheduled castes and scheduled tribes.

9. Continued In addition to this ministry, there are four other ministries partially concerned with facets of rural development: Social Welfare, Health and Family Welfare, Works and Housing and Home Affairs. These Ministries, however, work more or less independently of each other notwithstanding the vaguely defined responsibility of the Ministry of Rural Development to ensure the integration of various components of rural development programmes for the benefit of rural people.

10. State-Level Administrative Machinery It is the state government which, as already mentioned, has direct responsibility for the administration of rural development programmes . As rural development embraces numerous functions- such as agriculture, cooperation, animal husbandry, public health and education- and such all these functions are performed by different departments, the rural administration engages the attention of several departments of the state government. The whole range of the state-level administration is involved, some directly and others somewhat distantly, in rural development. Most states have a department of rural development headed by a secretary who is normally a member of the Indian Administrative Service(IAS).

11. District Level Administration District Administration is the total functioning of Government in a district, that total complex organisation of the management of public affairs at work, dynamic and not static, in the territory of a geographically demarcated district. A district is put in charge of a district collector-also called the deputy commissioner in what were once non-regulatory provinces-and is the unit of administration for the rural development(and even all other) departments such as agriculture, cooperative societies, animal husbandry, public health, education and public works.

12. Block-Level Administration Below the district come the Sub Divisions and then Blocks level and each block has functionaries of all the technical departments engaged in rural development programmes (known as extension officer) and headed by a coordinator, known as the block development officer. Below the Block, one important functionaries was there designated as village-level worker who is not an executive officer but the filed level worker. The village level worker (VLW) is designed as a multi-purpose functionary capable of rendering services of the ‘first aid’ variety to villagers.

13. Continued After more than seven decades of development planning, rural administration still displays serious faults. It generally fails to deliver services and supplies promptly, efficiently and equitably. The failure is due partly to inadequate resources, partly to an elitist bias and partly to the lack of coordination. And rural development administration generally fails to secure popular participation. Traditional attitudes have prevented any synthesis with local institutions or a real partnership with the people.

14. Rural Development Bureaucracy and State Bureaucracy is one of the important agent for formulation, implementation and evaluation of the rural development policy. Bureaucracy at different level Central Level- Secretary State Level – Secretary District Level –District Magistrate Sub Division Level – SDO Block Level - BDO

15. Continued From a management perspective, the central challenge of our times is to understand and modify bureaucratic organisations by building into them a capacity for innovative learning, leading to a fundamental orientation in their purposes and modes of operation. This is what is called Bureaucratic Re-Orientation(BRO). What we need most urgently now are operational prescriptions for rural development organisations , which may want to implement the new strategy of BRO.

16. A Conceptual Framework for Bureaucratic Reorientation BRO assumes a decision by the agency to initiate a fundamental change in its objectives, or a radical shift in its strategy. Only the strongest- present or imminent- pressures from the external environment are likely to budge bureaucracies from their settled ways. Once the new strategy is identified and accepted, the BRO process can begin. Access to the top management of the agency is a precondition for any attempt at BRO to get started and prosper. BRO takes a long time, possibly longer than the tenure of the executive who starts the process. His departure from the scene the tenure of the executive who starts the process. His departure from the scene inevitably results in some disruption of the BRO process. For the purposes of triggering and sustaining the BRO process, it is vitally important that some source of external funds, such as a foundation or an international development agency be associated with the agency undertaking BRO. As with the stimulus for changes, resources for bringing about BRO have to come from outside the agency.

17. Continued Training of agency personnel seems to be a tactically sound first step in the process of BRO. A training programme can serve not only to develop skills, but also to initiate or sustain the process of change. A manager aiming to elicit certain behaviour patterns from his staff ought to focus on changing the structures within the organisation , rather than the attitudes of the people . But this assertion holds more strongly for private enterprise than for a government or public sector organisation . Public sector managers place a high premium on convincing people to change their views about their work. Not everyone will respond to the appeal for an attitude change, but not everyone will need to. A few ‘champions’ can have pervasive effects.

18. Rural Development Administration – The Role of ICT Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is very much important issue in today’s Rural Development Administration. Basically the concepts of E-governance, SMART administration and Sohoj Tathymitra Kendra etc. are very much related to this idea. The main objective of E-governance is to provide access to government services to every individual 24 hours a day as well as 7 days a week.

19. Pillars of E-Governance/ ICT

20. Suggested Readings Shriram Maheshwari (1985) Rural Development in India: A Public Policy Approach , Sage Publications, New Delhi Katar Singh (2009) Rural Development: Principles, Policies and Management , Sage Publications, New Delhi