Unit-2:

Rural Development Programmes

Prepared by:
Ankur Sachdeva
Assistant Professor, ME
 Introduction
• In the Indian context, the village population has been growing without a proportionate
increase in production or income. The average villager has a pitifully low standard of
comfort.
• Rural reconstruction implies renovation of the villages for the total wellbeing of the
ruralites. It is oriented to their social, economic and political development.
• The principal objectives of rural reconstruction include
• (a) eradication of poverty by means of regeneration of cottage industries, establishment of
cooperative societies, improvement of transport,
• (b) spread of education,
• (c) progress of health,
• (d) abolition of social malpractices like casteism, untouchability and the like.
• The non-violent Swaraj of Mahatma Gandhi was based on the idea of rural reconstruction.
 Aspects of Rural reconstruction
• Broadly speaking, rural reconstruction programme entails three aspects: material,
intellectual and moral.
• So far as the material aspect is concerned, rural reconstruction programme is oriented to
improve the health and raise the standard of living of the ruralites.
• The former is achieved by encouraging better sanitation and by the provision of medical
aid.
• The moral aspect, however, is the most fundamental.
• It seeks to awaken the villager from the long stupor of ages, so that he may realise his due
in life as well as shake off his lethargy and work in co-operation with government
agencies to ameliorate his lot.
• It aims at creating in him the desire for self-improvement and self-discipline by individual
and collective action so that he may be freed of the inhibitions standing in the way of his
self-realization.
• It seeks to release his pent-up energies for removing defeatism, superstition, baseless fears
created by centuries of depression.
 Rural Development Programmes
• About 65 percent population of the country is living in the economically
undeveloped area.
• Therefore, many evils such as illiteracy, superstitions, unhealthy practices etc.
took roots in our country.
• After Second World War or after independence, it was thought to settle all these
problems properly and so, many development programmes were reinvigorated.
• It is wrong to declare that there was nothing done during slavery period.
• However, those works, which were executed at that time, were very few in
number according to the needs.
• Looking at a vast country like India, during British rule some selected social
workers had started some programmes of rural development. The evolution of
extension programme is described in two stages:
• Stage I- Pre-Independence Era (1866-1947)
• Stage II- Post-Independence Era (1947-1953)
 Pre-Independence Era
• Over a period of about seventy years number of rural development
experiments and programmes were conducted in India.
• Long before the introduction of the Government managed extension
system at the national level in 1952, there had been sporadic attempts in
developing the rural life.
• Knowledge of the early extension efforts shall serve as a useful background
in understanding the development of systems of extension in India.
• The early extension efforts had two distinct patterns.
• First, there were attempts by some benevolent persons and private agencies to
improve rural life.
• Second, attempts were made at government level to initiate some projects to solve
the pressing problems in agriculture.
Rural Programmes (Pre-Independence Era)
Year Place Person/Agency

Scheme of Rural Reconstruction at the Sir Daniel Hamilton

1903 Sunderbans in Bengal
Gurgaon project in Haryana F.L. Brayne
1920
Sriniketan experiment in Bengal Rabindra Nath Tagore
1920
Seva-gram experiment in Wardha in Gujarat Mahatma Gandhi
1920
Dr. Spencer Hatch
1928 Marthandam project in Kerala Young Men Christian Association (YMCA)
Baroda village reconstruction project B.T. Krishnamachari
1932
Grow more food campaign Agricultural departments of state governments
1942
Indian village service Dr. W.H. Wisher
1945
Firka Vikas Yojana in Madras (now in Tamilnadu) Government of Madras
1946
 Sriniketan Experiment
• Sriniketan is situated about 100 km. away from Calcutta (Kolkata) in West-Bengal State.
• This area was backward socially, economically and politically. In India, Sriniketan
Experiment in the beginning of this century was considered to be the first attempt in rural
development.
• Sri Rabindra Nath Tagore, a visionary and a poet had brought a sea change in the environs
surrounding Sriniektan in West Bengal.
• The programme aimed at socio-economic as well as moral rehabilitation of rural
community.
• As part of the rural development programme, monkeys and malaria was eradicated in first
phase.
• Later on, new strategy of agriculture, new breeds of cows, poultry and village crafts were
introduced.
• Doors of education were opened to village children, adults.
• In addition, villagers were educated in the use of new agricultural implements by way of
demonstrations.
 Sriniketan Experiment
• Sriniketan Village Welfare Institute was established in 1920 whose main
objectives were the following:
➢ To increase the knowledge of rural people.
➢ To help the rural people in establishing cottage industry.
➢ To inspire the people to follow new technology.
➢ Development of dairy farming.
➢ To create the feeling of co-operation.
➢ To arrange the facility of health and education.
➢ To create the feeling of rural leadership.
• This Project, in the beginning, was started only in 8 villages but after some
time this project was extended to 15 villages.
• Shri Tagore was the landlord of all these villages.
• Being centralized over Shri Tagore this Project could not survive after the
death of Shri Tagore, and came to an end after his death.
 Gurgaon Experiment
• In Gurgaon district, this programme of village development was the first one to be run by the State. It
was started by the Mr. F. L. Brayne.
• In 1920, Mr. Brayne had been appointed on the post of Deputy Commissioner in Gurgaon district and he
began this project of rural upliftment in his district, which became famous as Gurgaon Project.
• Rural upliftment movement on amass scale was first started by Mr. F. L. Brayne. He was prompted by
the backwardness, poverty and misery of the people.
• A village guide had been posted to act as a channel through which the advice of the experts in various
departments could be passed on to the villagers.
• The main objectives of this project were:
• (1) To increase crop production,
• (2) to control extra expenditure,
• (3) to improve the health,
• (4) to develop the feeling of women education, and
• (5) home development work.
 Gurgaon Experiment
• The programme of introducing improved seeds, implements, the methods of
cultivation etc. was started throughout the district.
• As the village guides were not technical men, very little permanent value was
achieved in fact.
• The project could not develop leadership in the villages that would continue work
when the village guides had left the villages.
• The work again gathered momentum, after 1933, where Mr. Brayne was appointed
Commission of Rural Reconstruction in the Punjab. 1935-36. Government of India
granted Rs.1 crore for various rural works which acted as a stimulus.
• Nevertheless the project could not make much headway as the local talent was not
utilized for development process.
• Most of the work done by exercising authority over the people rather than by
voluntary participation of local people.
• Moreover, this project was also based upon the sentiments of F.L. Brayne and
when he was transferred, gradually this programme also stopped.
 Marthandam Experiment
• The work was commenced by Dr. Spencer Hatch an American Agricultural expert in Travancore under the
auspicious of young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) in 1921.
• The villages in Marthandam area were undeveloped economically and the economic condition of the native
majority was poor.
• Here, people used to cultivate only paddy and coconut on some places. For exploiting this weakness, it was
thought that some developmental work should be done, so that the Christian faith could spread.
• Consequently Dr. Hatch made agreement with YMCA and the Church for his work and initiated this project in
neighbouring village Marthandam.
• The main objective of the project was to bring more abundant life for rural people.
• It was intended to symbolize the three-fold development, not only spiritual, mental and physical but also
economic and social.
• The essential technique of the centre was ‘Self-help with intimate expert counsel’.
• From the demonstration centre at Marthandam, about hundred villages were covered through Y.M.C.A.
centers in villages.
 Marthandam Experiment
• The objectives of this project were also made on the basis as to how the public of
this area could become Christian.
• The main objectives of this project were:
a) Spiritual development
b) Mental development
c) Physical development
d) Social development
e) Economic development
• Marthandam was in a strategic position to serve the villages.
• It kept prize bulls and goats, model bee-hives, demonstration plots for improving
grain and vegetable seeds, poultry runs with prize laying-hens, a weaving shed,
etc.
 Marthandam Experiment
• Inside the centre, there was equipment like honey extractors, health charts and the
items needed for other cottage vocations.
• At the centre, cottage vocations were taught and agricultural implements tested.
• The emphasis throughout was on self-help and co-operation.
• The successful output of this project was the Egg-selling Club. In 1939 which
became a self governing body.
• Another co-operative society was honey club, where the villagers were taught the
use of modern bee-hives and extracted honey scientifically. The honey was cured
and marketed co-operatively.
• There were Bull clubs, weaver’s club also.
• The activities conducted at centre could meet the mental, physical and spiritual
needs of the villagers.
 Marthandam Experiment
• The main shortcomings of the project were inadequate funds and governmental
help.
• The activities were mainly organized the Marthandam and the village workers did
not stay in villages.
• The religious bias of the institution was also a major hindrance in its activities.
• For, this programme of Dr. Hatch remained for a long period because he had
trained workers and the local people were inspired to work themselves.
• As such this project was very successful in this area.
• But the whole programme was centred on a person and after the death of Dr.
Hatch, there was a conflict on the question of leadership between YMCA and
Church Association and due to no economic advantage to the non-paid workers,
this programme could not survive.
 Baroda Experiment (1932)
• This movement was started by V.T. Krishnachari in 1932 in the Baroda state
where he was Dewan at that time.
• In the first instant its objective was to bring about a rapid increase in standards of
living, industrialization and rapid expansion of the educational system.
• The second objective was to increase agricultural production through the provision
of basic necessities for the development of the same.
• At first, some extension workers were taken on deputation from Dr. Spencer Hatch
of Marthandam.
• The first rural reconstruction centre commenced work in April, 1932 in a group of
villages around Kosambain, Navsari district.
• The basic idea underlying the rural reconstruction experiment in the rural areas around
Baroda were: "The single outstanding fact in the agricultural economy of India is that
owing to seasonal and other conditions, work on the land is possible only during a portion
of the year.
 Baroda Experiment (1932)
• Millions of people are, thus, unemployed over periods of the year
ranging from two to three months in the highly irrigated areas to as
much as eight to nine months in the dry tracts.
• This long interval of enforced idleness and dreary waiting between
crop and crop leads to evil, economic and moral, which it is
unnecessary to describe to those who know village life in India-the
squalor and rivalries, and factions and the litigation which has been
described as 'our second greatest industry.’
• “No lasting improvement can be achieved in the conditions of rural
life unless all sides of it are attacked at the same time; the many sides
of it are all so closely interconnected."
 Baroda Experiment
The centre aimed at:
1. Effecting an improvement in all aspects of rural life i. e. changing the outlook of
the agriculturists, the problem being "the development of the desire for a higher
standard of living,"
2. To undertake intensive work to release this aim,
3. To develop best type of village leadership; and to undertake the following
programme:
a) Economic Programme consisted of:
(i) Development of subsidiary occupation like kitchen gardening, weaving, poultry
farming, sericulture, bee-keeping etc.
(ii) Farm improvements in cotton and other crops
(iii) Co-operative society to inculcate thrift and
(iv) The village panchayats to provide for sanitation, village roads and drinking
water supply.
 Baroda Experiment
b) Education and Moral Programmes included Adult Education:
• development of community sense and of a feeling of solidarity in the village;
• propaganda against evils like early marriages and unreasonable customs connected with social
observances;
• the proper use of village libraries;
• the scout movement and other educative work through lantern lectures; in short, making
village life full and interesting.
• The village school should be the centre of all such activities.
The programme of rural reconstruction was to be part of a wider programme for bringing about a
rapid increase in standard of living. Increased agriculture production lay at root of all
development.
Therefore, the programme was progressively expanded to cover measures such as provision of
irrigation facilities; conservation of soil; production of nucleus seed; their multiplication and
distribution; education in agriculture and supplementary occupations.
 Firka Development Scheme
• This programme was started by Government in the last quarter of 1946 in Firkas throughout
Madras state.
• It was extended to another 50 additional Firkas at the rate of two Firkas per district.
Selection of Firkas
1. On the basis of their backwardness.
2. Possibilities for increasing the production of handloom clothes and other cottage industries.
Objectives
1. To tackle the rural problem as a whole.
2. Preparation of short term plans for the development of rural communication, water supply.
3. Formation of panchayats and organization of cooperatives.
4. Long term plan to make the area self sufficient through agricultural, irrigational and livestock
improvements.
5. Development of Khadi and Cottage Industries.
 Firka Development Scheme
• Each Firka was divided into 5 to 10 groups of villages which were put in the charges of Gram Sewaks.
• Each Firka or Group of Firkas was provided with special staff like agricultural field man, administrative
officers, Supervisors and minor irrigation oversees.
• At the state level, there was a state Rural welfare Board comprising the heads of the departments and
influential and constructive social workers.
• This board drew up the comprehensive plan of Firka Development October, 1947.
• In order to effectively stimulate healthy competition between official and non-official agencies, the
Government of Madras decided to entrust the development schemes to non-officials agencies engaged in
doing constructive work.
• Five non-official agencies were actually selected and paid grants for doing Firka Development of:
1. Rural Reconstruction
2. Drinking water facilities
3. Sanitation
4. Agriculture
5. Khadi and village industries
 Post-Independence Era
• The urgent need for stepping up food production was realized even in the pre-
Independence era and a Grow-More-Food Campaign was started.
• Under the campaign, targets for increased agricultural production were laid down for the
first time on an all-India basis.
• But the campaign failed to achieve its targets.
• Soon after Independence (1947), the Central Government re-defined the objectives of the
Grow-More-Food Campaign as the attainment of self-sufficiency in food grains by 1952,
and simultaneously increased the targets of production of other crops to meet the shortfall
as a result of the partition of the country.
• At the same time, arrangements were made for integration and co-ordination of the entire
campaign for increasing agricultural production.
• Some state governments associated the public with working of the campaign by setting up
of non-official committees at the village, taluka, district and state levels.
• The plans were revised from time to time in order to make the campaign more effective
Rural Programmes (Post-Independence Era)

Year Place Person/Agency

Nilokheri Experiment (Mazdoor Manzil) Shree S K Dey

1948
Etawah Pilot Project Albert Mayer
1948
CDP Community Development Programme
1952

1953 NES National Extension Service

Community Development Block

1954 CDB

1957 Panchayati Raj Panchayati Raj Democratic Decentralization

 Etawah Pilot Project (1948)
• The project was conceived by Albert Mayer who was an American town planner
and remained in India during the Second World War.
• The project started at Mahewa in the district of Etawah of Uttar Pradesh in 1948
with the aim to develop villages in the fields of agriculture, cooperation and public
health.
• The Etawah district was divided into a number of blocks, each block having 64
villages with a population of 70,000.
• The village development programmes included improvement of land, agricultural
practices, educational facilities and sanitation in villages; local cooperatives and
panchayats were to propagate the message of development.
• The Etawah project was the forerunner to the Community Development Project
(CDP) which later on started in 1952.
 Etawah Pilot Project (1948)
• It should also be observed that the project was supervised by experts in different
walks of village life.
• The project personnel were expected to provide expert guidance but the people
were required to make the project self- running.
• No financial assistance, however, was given to the people. The project belonged to
them and, therefore, they had to run it.
• Another specialty of the project was that it emphasized on agriculture,
cooperatives, health and sanitation, and education.
• Such an approach to village development makes two things clear: the development
of villages occupies a top most priority and agriculture, cooperatives and
education are the prime areas that no development effort could afford to neglect.
 Nilokheri Experiment
• Nilokheri is located in Karnal district of Punjab (now in Haryana).
• The Nilokheri project was launched for the settlement of refugees who migrated to
Punjab during the riots which took place soon after independence.
• The project was initiated by S.K. Dey who was then, the Minister of Community
Development.
• The original plan of Nilokheri was to have a township of 5,000 people and to link
it with villages having a population of about 25,000.
• It was contemplated that the Nilokheri town would have centre of medical relief,
Public health and sanitation.
• There was also a provision for high school education, technical and vocational
training, horticulture, poultry, piggery, fishery, sheep breeding and other farms of
animal husbandry.
 Nilokheri Experiment
• It was within the scope of the project to change the villages according to the scheme of development.
• It was planned to accommodate the refugees who were then living in the camps.
• However, the complete scheme for urban and rural area could not materialize as the Ministry of Rehabilitation
was concentrated only with the displaced persons who could be settled in the new town, and in the villages
around there were already old inhabitants.
• Alongside technical and vocational training, work centres were started in all the crafts which were
taught in the former institutions.
• Weaving calico printing, soap making, laundry, bakery, tinsmithy, blacksmithy, general mechanics,
leather and a multitude of other crafts and trades came in as production nucleus.
• The Nilokheri project was unlike any other village development project.
• Its objective was to rehabilitate the refugees in a planned settlement where they could get
everything which is required for a town or a village.
• The clusters of neighbouring villages were also planned to be attached with the Nilokheri town.
• But, this could not be done as the villages were already settled and had their felt needs fulfilled.
• The project did not have a formal role of non-officials. S.K. Dey who was basically an engineer did
not pay much heed to social and cultural aspects of village. Despite this weakness Nilokheri was an
excellent exercise in the planning of a town.
• It would be worthwhile to say here that Indian villages are never found in planned settlements.
 Nilokheri Experiment
Objectives:
1. Self sufficiency for rural cum urban township in all essential requirements of life.
2. Making provision of work and training for the people according to their native background.
3. To check middle men.
4. To enable transactions between the consumer and the producer, to approach a vertical order.
Activities:
1. Polytechnic training for B.D.O. and S.E.O. and V.L.W.
1. Housing and marketing facilities.
2. Management of schools, hospitals and recreation center.
3. To make the cultivable land of all 700 acres of Swampy land.
4. Cooperative credit facility.
5. Small scale industries were run on cooperative basis.
 Gandhian Approach towards Rural Development

• Mahatma Gandhi as a visionary of India, had a very clear perception of its villages
and made an emphatic assertion that "India lives in her seven and half lakhs of
villages’.
• He further believed that India will have to live in villages, not in towns, in huts not
in palaces.
• He held this conviction by saying that "If village perishes, India will perish too”.
• Gandhi, played the leading role in securing for India political independence from
the British Raj, through organizing and mobilizing Indian people from all walks of
life in a peaceful and non-violent manner.
• Gandhiji’s approach to India’s rural development was holistic and people-centred.
It was rooted in his conviction in the tenets of truth, non-violence and the
goodness of human-beings.
 Gandhian Approach towards Rural Development

• He found that the progress of the country lies in the development of majority of its rural
villages, develop rural economy, industry and rural skills.
• Gandhiji found the only way of bringing hope of good living to the rural people is by
making the village the central place in the economic programme.
• Rural development as outlined by Gandhiji contained self-sufficiency, interdependence
for other wants and development of Village Industries.
• Theoretically, Gandhian approach to rural development may be labelled as ‘idealist’. It
attaches supreme importance to moral values and gives primacy to moral values over
material conditions.
• The concept of ‘Rama Rajya’ is the basis of Gandhiji’s idea of an ideal social order.
• In the Gandhian scheme, ‘Rama’ stood for God or one’s own ‘inner voice’.
• Gandhi believed in a democratic social order in which people are supreme.
 Values Underlying Gandhian Model
➢ Rural India is found not in its cities, but in its villages.
➢ The revival of villages is possible only when the villagers are exploited no more.
Exploitation of villagers by city dwellers was ‘violence’ in Gandhiji’s opinion.
➢ Simple living and high thinking, implying voluntary reduction of materialistic
wants, and pursuit of moral and spiritual principles of life.
➢ Dignity of labour : everyone must earn his bread by physical labour , and one
who labours must necessarily get his subsistence.
➢ Performance to the use of indigenous (swadeshi) products, services and
institutions.
➢ Balance between the ends and the means : Gandhiji believed that non-violence
and truth could not be sustained unless a balance between the ends and the means
was maintained.
 Components of Gandhian Model
• Self Sufficient Village Economy
• Decentralization
• Panchayati Raj
• Khadi and Village Industries
• Cooperatives
• Trusteeship
• Village Sanitation
• Nai Taleem
 Tagore’s Approach towards Rural Development
➢Rabindranath Tagore’s unique venture on rural reconstruction at Silaidaha-Patisar
and at Sriniketan was a pioneering work carried out by him with the motto of the
wholesome development of the community life of village people through
education, training, healthcare, sanitation, modern and scientific agricultural
production, revival of traditional arts and crafts and organizing fairs and
festivities in daily life.
➢He believed that through self-help, self-initiation and self-reliance, village people
will be able to help each other in their cooperative living and become able to
prepare the ground work for building the nation as an independent country in the
true sense.
➢His model of rural reconstruction is the torch-bearer of so many projects in
independent India.
 Tagore’s Approach towards Rural Development
• Rural reconstruction work that Rabindranath considered as his ‘life’s work’
continued in three main phases :
• the first one during his work as a zamindar in his family estate in East Bengal,
• the second one during the ‘Swadeshi Movement’ in 1903-08 and
• the third one at Sriniketan during 1920s.
• His principle of ‘life in its completeness’ found a practical expression in his active
works on rural reconstruction that are still relevant to the present challenges in the
world.
 Ist Phase
• Rabindranath was engaged in his Zamindari work in his family estates
at Silaidaha and Patisar during 1890s and his field work in rural
reconstruction began here where he gained first-hand experience about
real conditions of the poor people of rural Bengal.
• As a recollection of this phase, he said in an address to the workers of
Sriniketan in 1939, “gradually the sorrow and poverty of the villagers
became clear to me, and I began to grow restless to do something
about it ….from that time onward I continuously endeavored to find
out how villagers’ mind could be aroused, so that they themselves
could accept responsibility for their own lives.
 IInd Phase
• His emphasis was on reorganization of rural life through collective efforts.
• The programme includes the revival of cottage industries to
• alleviate the poverty of the village folk,
• reduction of expenditure at socio-religious ceremonies,
• the creation of a group of volunteers who would take initiative to form a harmonious
relationship between Hindus and Muslims,
• keen cooperation between rural workers and villagers,
• employment of a people’s representative as the leader of the society who would be selected by
the people.
• “To eat alone was a greater shame for us than to use humble banana leaves for
sharing our food with others. Shall we not get back that sense of shame? “
 IIIrd Phase
• The third phase of Rabindranath’s activities on rural reconstruction started after he
purchased a house and land at Surul in 1912.
• The underlying principle was “we must liberate these few villages in every respect
so that all may receive education, a breeze of joy may blow once again, songs and
music, recitation from epics and scriptures may fill them, as of your. Mould just
these few villages …”.
• The main motive of the programme was “to try to feed the chocked bed of village
life with the stream of happiness”.
• He believed that proper training, education and encouragement can lift the
fortunes of these people and self-initiation, self-help and social cooperation are the
means to achieve his goals