Rural Development and Planning in India

Systematic structural and behavioural changes are essential to institutionalize district development planning as a full-fledged and viable system within the framework of multilevel planning. These measures will help in better mobilization and allocation of scarce resources for tackling and containing local problems effectively. Experience of the developing world indicates and the present indepth study supports the findings that apait from .;entific disaggregation and allocation of resources, new patterns and orientation of administrative behaviour have to be developed to make the planning effort more result-oriented. The present analytical explosion, the first of its kind in the context of the Third World, fills an important gap in the existing literature on development planning and offers valuable cues to a variety of searching questions which have been troubling the planners and policy makers for years. This study proves the hypothesis that better the understanding of the variety of constraints and considerations which go into integration and coordination in planning and implementation of various development schemes greater will be the utility of the schemes in the context of the development effort. Spread to 10 chapters, the study discusses in detail objectives and scope of district planning, planning process, resources planning, institutionalization of development administration, collector as the chief coordinator, monitoring and evaluation, etc. The suggestions, if implemented, will go a long way to take the benefits of planned effort to the 'poorest of the poor* as well as help India to enter the twenty-first century with confidence and more egalitarian and modernized societal base. Based on rigorous research methodology, the conclusions have been scientifically deduced, logically argued and cogently presented.