PRACTICAL -6

OBJECTIVE: To study the organization and functioning of DRDA

District Rural Development Agency (DRDA) has traditionally been the principal

organ at the district level to oversee the implementation of anti-poverty
programmes of the Ministry of Rural Development. This agency was originally
created to implement the Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP).
Subsequently, the DRDAs were entrusted with a number of programmes of both
state and central governments. The task of DRDA has been to identify the needs of
the rural population and reach the appropriate schemes where they are needed. In
implementing the schemes, the role of the DRDA has been technical, managerial
and financial.
Mission / Vision Statement: The objective of the scheme is to strengthen and
professionalize the DRDAs so that they can effectively enhance the quality of
implementation.
With the adoption of the Constitutional mandate for decentralization of powers that
privileged those self-government institutions in planning for economic
development and social justice, the proposal to re-think the status of DRDAs and
also to merge them with the panchayats had emerged. DRDAs were to be
progressively merged with the District Panchayats and their technical expertise was
made available to all tiers of Panchayats.
Main activities / functions
 To formulate policy guidelines for DRDAs
 Release of funds under DRDA Administration Scheme
List of services being provided with a brief write – up on them
 Allocation of funds under DRDA Administration Scheme
 Release of funds under DRDA Administration Scheme
 Organization of Conference of Project Directors of DRDAs
The Staffing structure will be as follows: A) PROJECT DIRECTOR
i) Each DRDA should be headed by a Project Director, who should be of the rank
of an Additional District Magistrate. The Project Director should preferably be a
senior scale officer of the All India Services or a senior officer of the State Service,
eligible for appointment to the All India Services.
ii) In some States, such as Maharashtra, the CEO of the Zilla Parishad is the
Chairman of the Zilla Parishad. Government of India have suggested to all the
State government that the chairman, Zilla Parishad should be the chairman of the
governing body of the DRDA.
a ) Self-employment Wing
b) Women’s Wing
c ) Wage employment Wing
d) Engineering Wing
e ) Accounts Wing
f) Monitoring and Evaluation Wing
g) General Administration Wing
a) SELF-EMPLOYMENT WING: The self-employment Wing, shall be headed by
a Project Officer and should have specialization in the field of planning, social
mobilisation, credit and Technology. The Project officer may be specifically
responsible for any of these four functions.
b) WOMEN’S WING: In order to ensure that women receive adequate attention in
all the anti-poverty programmes, a Women’s Cell should be set up in each DRDA.
This Cell would establish necessary synergy with Departments such as Women &
Child Development, Education and health Departments to ensure that women not
only receive their due share in the antipoverty programmes but are also able to
receive benefits of other programmes.
c) WAGE EMPLOYMENT WING: The Central concern of the DRDA in the
wage-employment programmes should relate to planning, monitoring and vigilance
by a technical wing. The DRDA should not concern itself with the actual
implementation and execution of works which can be done by the line
department/engineers or the Panchayati Raj Institutions.
d) WATERSHED WING: A Watershed Wing will be set up in the DRDA in all
such districts where. This wing should consist of a Project Officer, assisted by a
small complement of staff. This staff would be independent of the programme
support in the form of PIAs or Watershed committees.
e) ENGINEERING WING: Each DRDA should have a technical wing, which
should also be responsible for innovations in design or use of materials, as well as
training of the engineering personnel of the line departments or the PRIs.
f) ACCOUNT WING: Wherever it has not been done, the DRDAs should shift
over to commercial accounting systems from the existing government account
system. They should publish an annual report along with the balance sheet. The
accounts wing of the DRDA should be headed by a Sr. Accounts Officer, either on
deputation or by engaging the services of a chartered accountant.
g) MONITORING WING: There should be a separate Monitoring and Evaluation
wing headed by a Project Economist and functioning directly under the supervision
of the Project Director. Apart from monitoring the progress of all the programmes,
this wing should also carry out evaluation/impact studies regularly by independent
institutions/experts including NGOs.
DDO- Drawing and Disbursing Officer
CDO- Chief Development Officer
SAO- Senior Accounting Officer
APD- Austin Police Department
 PRACTICAL -7

OBJECTIVE: To study the participatory rural appraisal technique

By the early 1980’s, there was growing dissatisfaction among development experts
with both the reductionism of formal surveys, and the biases of typical field visits.
In 1983, Robert Chambers, a Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies (UK),
used the term Rapid Rural Appraisal to describe techniques that could bring about
a 'reversal of learning'. Two years later, the first international conference to share
experiences relating to RRA was held in Thailand. This was followed by a rapid
growth in the development of methods that involved rural people in examining
their own problems, setting their own goals, and monitoring their own
achievements. By the mid 1990’s, the term RRA had been replaced by a number of
other terms including ‘Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA)’ and ‘Participatory
Learning and Action’ (PLA).

Different practitioners would find different principles but most would agree to
include the following:

1. Using optimal ignorance: this refers to the importance of knowing what it is

not worth knowing. It avoids unnecessary details and irrelevant data. It does not
measure more precisely than is needed. It optimizes trade off between quality,
relevance, accuracy and timeliness.
2. Offsetting biases: especially those of  rural  development tourism, by being
relaxed and not rushing, listening not lecturing, probing instead of passing on to
the next topic, being unimposing instead of important , and seeking out the poorer
people and their concerns.
3. Triangulation: using more than one, and often three, sources of information to
 cross-check answers.
4. Learning from and with rural people: directly, on the site, and face-to-face,
gaining from indigenous physical, technical and social knowledge.
5. Learning rapidly and progressively: with conscious exploration, flexible use
of methods, opportunism, improvisation, iteration, and cross-checking, not
following a blueprint program but adapting through a learning process.

RRA PRA
Extractive in nature Learning with local people

Elicited Information owned by rural

people but shared with
Information owned by outsiders.
outsiders

A selection of participatory methods and their uses:

Participatory Brief description Examples of particular use

method
Timelines Historical profiles of longer-term Fish catch over time,
events or trends productivity changes, policy
changes
Seasonal calendars Graphical representation of Labor availability,
seasonal events or trends hydrographic changes
Transect walks and Land- and water-use maps Quality and quantity of natural
through based on walking capital, local resource maps
particular areas knowledge of microhabitat,
current use of aquatic resources
Social maps Maps locating key social Access to services and
features infrastructure
Wealth ranking Socio-economic categorization Assets, income
of households
Preference ranking Ordinal ranking, e.g. based on Livelihood strategies, assets
pairwise comparisons, based on and matrix ranking access to
 defined criteria with scoring services (e.g., fish for
  conservation)

Some tips for doing PRA :

It is easier to give advice than to take it. So one has to be cautious. Here is a personal list of some
practical tips
1. Do not lecture. Look, listen and learn.
2. Facilitate; do not dominate; do not interrupt or interfere; once a task is initiated, let people get on
with it; give them
time to think or discuss among themselves.
3. Embrace error. We all make mistakes, and do things badly sometimes. Never mind. Do not hide it.
Share it.
4. Try to obtain opinions from all groups.
5. Relax, do not rush.
6. Meet people when it suits them.
7. Use six helpers – what, why, who, how where, and when

Practical applications:

Since the early 1990s, PRA approaches and methods have evolved and spread with
astonishing speed. Originating mainly among non-government organisations
(NGOs) in East Africa and South Asia, they have since been adopted by
government departments, training institutes, aid agencies, and universities all over
the world. They are now being used in at least 100 countries, with PRA networks
existing in over 30. PRA has been applied in almost every domain of development
and community action, both urban and rural.

Examples include:
 Natural resources management
 Establishing land rights of indigenous people
 Slum development
 HIV/AIDS awareness and action
 Anti-poverty programmes
 Disaster management
 Negotiation and conflict resolution
 Adult literacy