Rural Development
24- RURAL DEVELOPMENT |
Introduction
INDIA has been a welfare state since independence and the primary objective of all governmental endeavours has been the welfare of its people. The policies and programs have been designed with the aim of alleviation of rural poverty which has been one of the primary objectives of planned development in India. It was realized that a sustainable strategy of poverty alleviation has to be based on increasing the productive employment opportunities in the process of growth itself. Elimination of poverty, ignorance, diseases and inequality of opportunities and providing a better and higher quality of life were the basic premise upon which all the plans and blue-prints of development were built.
- Accordingly, in 1952, an organization is known as the Community Projects Administration was set up under the Planning Commission to administer the programs relating to community development.
- In October 1974, the Department of Rural Development came into existence as a part of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture.
- In August 1979, this Department was elevated to the status of a new Ministry of Rural Reconstruction.
- That ministry was renamed as the Ministry of Rural Development and again converted into a Department under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
- It was later rechristened as the Ministry of Agriculture in September 1985.
- In 1991 the Department was upgraded as Ministry of Rural Development.
- The Ministry was again renamed as the Ministry of Rural Development in 1999 with three departments viz., Department of Rural Development, Department of Land Resources and Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation.
- The Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation was made a separate Ministry from July 2011.
- Presently, the Ministry of Rural Development consists of two departments, namely, the Department of Rural Development and the Department of Land Resources.
Major Programmes for Rural Development |
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Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) |
Direct Benefit Transfer:
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Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana—National Rural Livelihoods Mission |
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Rural Self Employment Training Institute |
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Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana |
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Rural Housing |
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National Social Assistance Programme |
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Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana |
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Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana |
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Land Reforms
Watershed Management Programme:
- A watershed is a topographically delineated area that is drained by a stream system.
- It includes physical and hydrological natural resources.
- Watershed management is the process of guiding and organizing land use and use of other natural resources in a watershed.
- Watershed development is a multi-disciplinary field, for sustainable natural resource management.
- Watershed development activities also contribute towards mitigation and adaptation to global warming.
Watershed Development:
- Under the erstwhile Integrated Watershed Management Programme, 8214 watershed development projects were sanctioned in 28 states (except Goa) during the period 2009-10 to 2014-15 covering an area of about 39.07 million hectares, principally for development of rainfed portions of net cultivated area and culturable wastelands.
- No further watershed development projects have been sanctioned from 2015-16 onwards.
Natural Land Reforms Modernization:
- The scheme of National Land Reforms Modernization Programme (NLRMP) has been renamed as Digital India Land Records Modernization Programme (DILRMP) and is being implemented since 2008.
- Under it, 27 states/ UTs have computerized the registration of records (RoRs) of land in their respective areas, 19 states/UTs have stopped manual issue of RoRs and 22 states/UTs have uploaded in their websites.
Panchayati Raj
- The mandate of the Ministry of Panchayati Raj (MoPR), which was set up in 2004, is to ensure the compliance of the provisions of Part IX of the Constitution, provisions regarding the District Planning Committees as per Article 243 ZD, and PESA.
- The Ministry’s vision is to attain decentralized and participatory local self-government through Panchayats, or Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs).
Constitutional Mandate:
- Part IX of the Constitution of India provides for setting up of three tiers of Panchayats (only two tiers in case of states of union territories having a population less than 2 million):
- Gram panchayats at the village level
- District panchayats at the district level
- Intermediate panchayats at sub-district level in between gram panchayats and district panchayats.
- It also provides for gram sabha (general assembly of registered voters who reside in the area of gram panchayat) as a forum for direct participation of villagers in local governance.
- The Constitution India has fixed five-year term for these panchayats and has made provision for the reservation of seats for women and marginalized sections (scheduled castes and scheduled tribes) of Indian society.
- While reservation of scheduled castes (SCs) & scheduled tribes (STs) is in proportion to their share in population, that for women is at least 33.33 percent.
- However, many states have increased the reservation of seats and chairperson posts for women in panchayats to 50 percent.
- The Constitution of India also stipulates direct elections of all members of panchayats.
- For conducting these elections, all states are mandated to constitute a State Election Commission.
- Also it is compulsory for states to constitute a State Finance Commission (SFC) every fifth year for recommending principles for division of financial resources between state and local governments (both urban and rural).
- SFCs are to make recommendations to the Governor regarding the distribution between the state and panchayats of the net proceeds to taxes, duties, toll, and fees, etc.
- Within this broad framework, as local government is a state subject, state legislatures have a critical role in determining various aspects of Panchayati raj in their states.
Rajiv Gandhi Panchayat Sashaktikaran Abhiyan
- To improve the functioning of PRI, the MoPR implemented the Rajiv Gandhi Panchayat Sashaktikaran Abhiyan (RGPSA) in the 12th Five Year Plan period i.e., from 2012-13 upto 2015-16.
- The RGPSA addressed the major constraints of inadequate devolution of powers, lack of manpower, inadequate infrastructure and limited capacity in the effective functioning of panchayats.
Rashtriya Gram Swaraj Abhiyan:
- The Rashtriya Gram Swaraj Abhiyan (RGSA) will focus on capacity building of Panchayati Raj Institutions for convergent action to deliver basic services and achieve development goals.
e-Panchayat:
- e-Panchayat was identified as one of the 27 Mission Mode Projects under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) formulated in 2006.
Recommendations of Fourteenth Finance Commission
For the period 2015—2020:
- Grants to the tune of ? 2,00,292.20 crore are being devolved to gram panchayats in the country constituted under Part IX of the Constitution constituting an assistance of ? 488 per capita per annum at an aggregate level for 26 states to ensure stable flow of resources at regular intervals.
- The FFC has not recommended grants to Non-Part IX areas under Schedule VI in Meghalaya, Mizoram, Tripura and Assam, the areas in the hill districts of Manipur, rural areas of Nagaland and Mizoram.
Drinking Water and Sanitation
- The Department of Drinking Water Supply was created in the Ministry of Rural Development in 1999, which was subsequently renamed as the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation in 2010.
- The government of India created and notified the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation as a separate Ministry in 2011.
- After the notification in June 2019, the Ministry has since been renamed as Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Ministry of Jal Shakti.
- The Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation is the nodal Ministry for the overall policy, planning, funding and coordination of the flagship programs of the Government of India viz., the National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP) for rural drinking water supply and the Swachh Bharat Mission (Gramin) [SBM(G)] for sanitation in the country.
Swachh Bharat Mission:
- Swachh Bharat Mission was launched in 2014.
- The concept of Swachh Bharat Mission is to provide access for every person to sanitation facilities
- including toilets, solid and liquid waste disposal systems and village cleanliness.
- The program is implemented by the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation.
- An Action Plan has been drawn up for Swachh Bharat to become a reality by 2019, the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.
- Mission Aim:
- To increase the access to sanitation from 39 percent in 2014 to 100 percent by October, 2019.
- The Action Plan calls for an Open Defecation Free (ODF) India in five years.
- To begin with, as part of Swachh Bharat, priority was given to build toilets for boys and girls in all schools of the country.
- This was completed within one year.
Swachh Bharat Mission (Gramin):
- Intervention in the rural sanitation sector in the country was initially started in 1954 as a part of the First Five Year Plan.
- The Government introduced a structured scheme in the form of the Central Rural Sanitation Programme (CRSP) in 1986 primarily with the objective of improving the quality of life of the rural people and also providing privacy and dignity to women.
- From 1999, a demand-driven” approach under the “Total Sanitation Campaign” (TSC) emphasizing more on Information, Education and Communication (IEC), Human Resource Development (HRD), capacity development activities to increase awareness among the rural people and generation of demand for sanitary facilities was started.
- The “Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan” (NBA), the successor program of the TSC, was launched from 2012, aimed at creating Nirmal villages, provided increased incentives through convergence with MNREGS.
- The Swachh Bharat Mission (Gramin) was launched in 2014.
- The focus of the new strategy is to move towards a Swachh Bharat by providing flexibility to state governments (sanitation being a state subject), to decide on their implementation policy and mechanisms, taking into account state-specific requirements.
- The Ministry is reforming the sanitation sector by shifting metrics from building toilets to Open Defecation Free villages.
Swachhata Pakhwada:
- Swachhata Pakhwada was started in April 2016 with the objective of bringing a fortnight of intense focus on the issues and practices of Swachhata by engaging GoI ministries and departments in their jurisdiction.
Namami Gange:
- Namami Gange Programme is an initiative of the Ministry of Jal Shakti, comprising making villages on the bank of river Ganga ODF and interventions dealing with solid and liquid waste management.
- All 4470 villages located across 52 districts of Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, and West Bengal have since been made ODF with the active help of state governments.
- Now the Ministry has taken up 24 villages on the bank of river Ganga to transform them as Ganga Grams in coordination with NMCG.
- Ganga Gram is another inter-ministry project between SBM and the Namami Gange Programme.
- Ganga Gram Project was unveiled in 2017 at a grand sammelan of sarpanches where all 4,475 Ganga Grams were declared Open Defecation Free (ODF).
- Gram Panchayats have been empowered to play an active role in the ownership and maintenance of Ganga Gram activities.
Swachh Iconic Places:
- The Ministry has taken up a multi-stakeholder initiative focusing on cleaning up 100 places across the country that are “iconic” due to their heritage, religious and/or cultural significance.
- This initiative is in partnership with ministries of Urban Development, Tourism, and Culture with MDWS being the nodal ministry.
- So far in first two phases, 20 iconic places have been taken up.
- All these 20 iconic sites have designated PSUs for financial and technical support.
National Rural Drinking Water Programme:
- The National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP) is a centrally sponsored scheme aimed at providing adequate and safe drinking water to the rural population of the country.
- The NRDWP is a component of Bharat Nirman which focuses on the creation of the infrastructure.
- Rural drinking water supply is a state subject and is also included in the Eleventh Schedule of the Constitution amongst the subjects that may be entrusted to panchayats by the states.
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