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Area Planning in Rajasthan
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 March 2011
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The general purpose of the Community Development Programme in India is to induce village communities (through extension methods and offer of financial and technical assistance) to participate actively, and to take initiative ultimately, in matters which directly concern their welfare. The approach to community development administration has been to create within each district separate administrative units for rural planning and development called blocks; to give each block a unified organization consisting of government personnel specially trained to work with village people; to provide each block with assured funds according to the provisions of schematic budgets formulated by the Government of India; to establish it as the common agency for all development departments working in rural India; and to ensure its efficient working through a series of co-ordinating committees and controlling authorities at the district, state, and national levels. National objectives have been stated in the five-year plans in terms sufficiently flexible to allow adjustment within each state to suit local circumstances.
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- Symposium on Chinese Studies and the Disciplines
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- Copyright © Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1964
References
1 See reports of the Programme Evaluation Organization of the Planning Commission for the years 1956–1961; Committee on Plan Projects, Report of the Team for the Study of Community Projects and National Extension Service, 3 vols. (New Delhi, 1957)Google Scholar; articles in the press in this period, e.g. “CD Movement a Flop Says Mysore Report,” Hindustan Times, 12 5, 1960Google Scholar, “Rural Institutions Lack Initiative,” finding of a sample survey conducted in one of the oldest blocks in Punjab, as reported in the Statesman, 12 20, 1960Google Scholar, “Slow Pace of Progress in Community Development,” report of the Reserve Bank Review, as reported in the Times of India, 02 8, 1961Google Scholar; and the following exchange: Mr. Nehru in late 1958: “I regret to say that the Community Development Movement has only very partially succeeded. Why is it so? Why?” (Nehru, Jawaharlal, “Trust the Peasant,” Kuruikshetra, 12 1958, p. 262Google Scholar) and a response by the Times of India, 10 19, 1960Google Scholar: “It is only by making a success of Panchayati Raj that the Government can hope to put the Community Development work in the rural areas on a stable basis.”
2 See the resolutions drafted and accepted at the annual Congress Session held at Bhavnagar in January 1961, as reported in the press at the time; e.g. Evening News of India (Bombay), 01 7, 1961Google Scholar, with its two-inch headline on the front page entitled: “Motion on Panchayati Raj Adopted at Congress Session.”
3 Besides the numerous official publications of the Government of Rajasthan on the subject, there are several independent studies: Congress Party in Parliament, Study Team's Report on Panchayati Raj it Rajasthan (New Delhi: Parliament House, 1960)Google Scholar; Association of Voluntary Agencies, Report of a Stud, Team on Democratic Decentralization in Rajasthan (New Delhi: Pataudi House, 1961)Google Scholar; Retzlaff, Ralph H., “Panchayati Raj in Rajasthan,” Indian Journal of Public Administration, VI, 141–158Google Scholar; Park, Richard L. “Administrative Co-ordination and Economic Development in the Districts of India,” in Braibanti, and Spengler, (eds.), Administration and Economic Development in India (Duke University Press, 1963), esp pp. 144–151Google Scholar; Potter, David C., Government in Rural India (London: G. Bell and Sons, 1964)Google Scholar, Chap. 8.
4 Government of Rajasthan, The Rajasthan Panchayat Samitis and Zila Parishads Act, 1959 (Jaipur: Government Central Press, 1959)Google Scholar, sees. 59, 66(3), 66A, 67, 68, 69, 91. For a contrary view, see Tinker, Hugh, India and Pakistan (New York: Praeger, 1962), p. 200Google Scholar: “In Andhra and Madras … the Distric Officer has succeeded in preserving a position of Deus ex Machina in local affairs; but in Rajasthan, wher there is no I.C.S. tradition, Panchayati Raj and its considerable resources are at the absolute disposal of the new political bosses.”
5 Government of Rajasthan, “Letter No. F. 149(33)Demo.D/Coord/DD/59/27155–765,” dated 1st October 1959 (unpublished).
6 The two paragraphs, slightly revised by the author, are taken from “A Brief Note on the Problems of Siwana Block, Barmer District,” dated November 1959 (unpublished). Numerous instances could be cited, e.g. this conclusion reached in a survey report done in Kushalgarh Block in the extreme south of Rajasthan: “On the whole, conditions obtaining in this area are much dissimilar [sic] to those in other parts of the country. Separate techniques and separate ways and means are necessary and will have to be adopted by the planner and development worker of the block.” See “Survey Report Multi-Purpose Development Block, Kushalgarh (Banswara District),” dated 1956 (unpublished).
7 This pattern was adopted in April 1958, under the Revised Programme of Community Development; it prevails throughout India at the present time.
8 From this point in the analysis, Pre-Extension samitis are not considered.
9 Central financial assistance will not be available on completion of Stage II; see Ministry of Community Development and Co-operation, Department of Community Development, Report, 1960–61 (1961), p. 3.Google Scholar
10 Only a very few samitis have a slightly different staffing pattern from the following, according to Government of Rajasthan, “Letter No. E.1(14)Estt/DD/58/31692,” dated 12 August 1958 (unpublished).
11 Source: compiled by the author from Ministry of Community Development and Co-operation, Revised Programme of Community Development (1959), pp. 21, 22, 24Google Scholar. Rs. 1 lakh equals 100,000 rupees.
12 Ministry of Community Development, “Circular No. CPA/1(n)/P/55,” dated 31–1–56, and reproduced in ibid., p. 79. These figures reappear in official and unofficial studies: e.g. Ministry of Community Development and Co-operation, Community Development Programme and Benefits (1960), p. 9Google Scholar; United Nations, Public Administration Aspects of Community Development Programmes (1960), p. 106Google Scholar; Brecher, Michael, Nehru: A Political Biography (London: Oxford University Press, 1959), p. 546.Google Scholar
13 Government of Rajasthan, “Letter No. F.156(Gen)GPR/Stat/DD/27859–999,” dated 10 February 1961 (unpublished). The population figures are based on the 1951 census. The hypothetical “average samiti” had, in 1951, a population of 56,100. The provisional 1961 census figures put population up 26 per cent. A rough estimate on the basis of these figures would put present population in the average samiti up to 70,000. On the basis of the schematic budgets the annual per-capita allotment works out to Rs. 3.40 in Stage I and Rs. 1.40 in Stage II. The fixed financial allocation for each type of samiti auto matically leads to a proportionate dilution in financial coverage, as the population increases.
14 Government of Rajasthan, “Letter No. F.156(Gen)GPR/Stat/DD/27859–999,” dated 10 February 1961 (unpublished).
15 Ibid.
16 E.g. “Revised Programme of Community Development,” p. 21: “This budget is only intended as a guide and is to be adjusted according to local conditions.”
17 Government of Rajasthan, “Letter No. F.173(Bud)/DD/59–60/A24291–827,” dated 7 October 1959 (unpublished).
18 Ibid.
19 Source: compiled by the author. The funds under “Rural Housing” are a loan provision and therefore can only be diverted to the head “Irrigation and Reclamation” as the only other loan provision in the schematic budget.
20 Government of Rajasthan, “Letter No. F.173(Bud)/DD/59–60/A24291–827,” dated 7 October 1959 (unpublished).
21 Ibid.
22 A total of 68 schemes were transferred to the samitis in October–December 1959 from the following departments of the Government of Rajasthan: Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, Medical and Health, Education, Industries, Co-operation, Social Welfare, Public Works, Forest, and Revenue. Other schemes have been transferred since that time.
23 Government of Rajasthan, “Education Department, Letter No. EBD/P/Stat/C/SP/(1)132(159),” dated 16 October 1959 (unpublished).
24 Government of Rajasdian, The Rajasthan Panchayat Samitis and Zila Parishads (Financial, Accounts and Budget) Rules, 1959 (Jaipur: Government Central Press, 1959)Google Scholar, sec. 36. The wording of this section is not precise, but the author verified the point in an interview with the Accounts Officer, Development Department, Government of Rajasthan, on 25 March 1961, at Jaipur.
25 The Rajasthan Panchayat Samitis and Zila Parishads Act, 1959, sec. 33(1)(2).
26 Source: unpublished data obtained by the author from the Development Department, Government of Rajasthan. The data taken together are not entirely consistent, but the figure 2 per cent is based on figures indicating total expenditure incurred by 139 Stage I and Stage II samitis in the period October 1960 to December 1960: Community Development Funds Rs. 4,750,000; Funds for Transferred Schemes Rs. 9,237,000; Uncommitted Funds Rs. 278,000.