Planning Region and Multi level

planning

Koyel Paul
Assistant Professor
Dept of Geography
University of Allahabad
 Region
• A region is an area on the earth’s surface marked
by certain properties that are homogeneous
inside and distinct from outside it.
• A region is defined as a part of the Earth’s surface
with one or many similar characteristics that
make it unique from other areas. Regional
geography studies the specific unique
characteristics of places related to their culture,
economy, topography, climate, politics and
environmental factors such as their different
species of flora and fauna.
 Planning
• According to Urwick, “Planning is a mental
predisposition to do things in orderly way, to think
before acting and to act in the light of facts rather than
guesses”. Planning is deciding best alternative among
others to perform different managerial functions in
order to achieve predetermined goals.
• According to Koontz & O’Donell, “Planning is deciding
in advance what to do, how to do and who is to do it.
Planning bridges the gap between where we are to,
where we want to go. It makes possible things to occur
which would not otherwise occur”.
 Planning Region
• A planning region is a segment of territory over which economic decisions apply.
• The term planning here means: taking decisions to implement them in order to
attain economic development.
• Planning regions may be administrative or political regions such as state, district or
the block because such regions are better in management and collecting statistical
data.
• Hence, the entire country is a planning region for national plans, state is the
planning region for state plans and districts or blocks are the planning regions for
micro regional plans.
• For proper implementation and realization of plan objectives, a planning region
should have fairly homogeneous economic, to geographical and socio-cultural
structure.
• It should be large enough to contain a range of resources provide it economic
viability.
• It should also internally cohesive and geographically a contagion area unit. Its
resource endowment should be that a satisfactory level of product combination
consumption and exchange is feasible.
• It should have some nodal points to regulate the flows
 Planning Region in India
C.S. Chandrasekhar proposed a scheme of planning regions . He divided India into 13
micro and 35meso planning regions. He used the criteria of physical economic and
ecological factors to demarcate the macro planning regions. These regions include:
(1) South peninsular region
(2) Central peninsular region
(3)Western peninsular region
(4)Eastern peninsular region
(5)Central deccan region,
(6) Gujrat region
(7) Western rajasthan region
(8) Aravali region
(9) Jammu & Kashmir and the ladakh region
(10) Trans into Gangetic region & the hill regions
(11) Ganga- Yamuna plain region
(12) The lower Ganga plain region,
(13) North-Eastern region
Critical aspects of Centralized Planning
In the first and second five years, India's approach to development was
mainly centralized planning from a financial and framing
perspective. But there are several drawbacks , as:
• local problems get ignored
• Not inclusive development
• Local Environmental issues not handled
• It is top to down approach
To overcome this planning, the first time, the Mehta Committee
report in 1957 supported decentralized planning, the following are
characteristics of Decentralized planning:
• Bottom to top approach
• implementation of some functions at the local level. It is a more
Democratic and responsive form of development.
Introduction of Multi level planning
• In Multi-level planning, countries can be divided into many regions
and regions can be further divided into many sub-regions based on
geographical, administrative, cultural, and political uniqueness.
• Planning is done at a sub-regional level that will provide bases for
regional planning and further it will provide the basis of country-
level planning.
• In multi-level Planning is similar to decentralized planning, but it is
done at more than two levels. Each level has a well-defined
function and they are functionally independent. Planning in each
level is done in a synchronized manner and also they are connected
with feedback loops.
• But finally, in 1992-93 multi-level planning was made mandatory in
the state through 73rd and 74th Constitution amendment acts.
 Hierarchy of multi level planning
As of now, the following are the various level of planning in India:
• Centre-Sectoral Planning, inter-state planning
• States- Regional Planning, Inter-regional planning, sectoral
planning,
• Districts-sub regional, regional planning,
• Blocks-areas planning
• Villages-village planning,
 Evolution of multi-level planning in
India:

• In the first and second five years, India's approach for development
was mainly centralized from a financial perspective.
• The first time, Mehta Committee report in 1957 supported multi-
level planning. But finally, in 1993 multi-level planning was made
mandatory in the state through 73rd and 74th Constitution
amendment acts.
• As of now, the following are the various level of planning in India:
• Centre
• States
• Districts
• Blocks
• Villages
 Constraints in Multilevel Planning in India
• A. It could not promote people’s participation in the formation of various plans.
The basic idea of the MLP model was that once the local-level plans will be handed
over to the blocks, the blocks will make their plans and once the blocks hand over
their plans to the districts, the district-level plans will be formulated. Similarly, the
state plans and the Five Year Plan if the Centre will formulate one. By doing so,
every idea of planning will have the representation of everybody in the- country at
the time of plan formation— a special kind of plan empathy would have developed
out of this process. But this was not the reality. Every stratum made its own
plans—lacking the empathy factor.
• B. Only Central Plans were implemented as the states lacked the required level of
finance to support the plans. They ultimately had to be satisfied by implementing
the Central Plans which failed to include the states’ empathy.
• C. As the local bodies in India were not having any constitutional mandate, they
just played complementary roles to the state planning process. As they had no
financial independence, their Plans, even if they were formulated, remained only
on paper.
• D. The MLP, thus, failed to include the people’s participation in planning, badly
betraying the local aspirations.
But at least the failure of MLP made the government think in the direction of
decentralized planning afresh leading to the enactment of the two important
Constitutional Amendments—the 73rd and 74th.
 Importance of Multilevel planning in
regional development in India:
• India is a very diverse country both geographically and culturally; one plan at the national
level can not be suitable for all over India, hence multi-level planning is very much needed for
India.
• Framing policy at multi-level would be catering to the actual ground level requirement for the
basic necessity. Multi-level planning helps to address local-level problems. For example,
– Some village facing water scarcity hence policy should be for water conservation
– Some region has flood problems, that policy should be to avoid the flood and strengthen
infrastructure.
• It will help to reduce the regional disparity in India.
• It helps to better utilization of resources because local people participate more and policy is
designated for the regional requirements.
• It uses local knowledge and techniques from local people experts to solve local issues.
• The involvement of local people provides quick and pragmatic feedback to planners and also
provides a solution.
• Corruption will be minimized as local people audit the implementation.
• Multilevel planning is more sustainable than single-level planning