Community Development Projects in India!
The phrase ‘community development’ is made of two words—’community’ and ‘development’. ‘Community’ is a social group, a cluster of people, who have some degree of ‘we feeling,’ share a common way of life and living in a contiguous limited area.
Members of a community have a feeling of belonging together and a sense of common membership which is known as ‘community sentiment’. The word ‘development’ refers to a process of change for better way of living (healthier life, more education, greater control over life, etc.). It implies some positive progress in society’s condition.
Thus, in simple terms, community development means development of the people of a community. It is a term which refers to the assessment of the needs problems and resources of the community and tries to solve them to the best of their efforts with the active participation of all.
The United Nations has defined the term community development as ‘a process by which the efforts of the people themselves are united with those of the governmental authorities to improve the economic, social and cultural conditions of communities, to integrate these communities into the life of the nation and to enable them to contribute fully to national progress’. It is a movement designed to promote better living for the whole community with the active participation and on the initiative of the community.
In India, Community Development Project (CDP) was launched under the Five-Year Plans on the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi on 2nd October 1952 to carry out the objectives outlined in the draft of the plan. According to Planning Commission of India, ‘CDP is the method and the rural extension the agency through which the Five-Year Plan seeks to initiate a process of transformation of the social and economic life of the villagers.’
In one of the reports of UNDP, Dag Hammarskjold, the then Secretary General, described the aims of Indian community projects in the following words: ‘The aim of Community Projects and National Extension Services (NES) is not merely to provide ample food, clothing and shelter, health and sanitation facilities in villages.
More important than the immediate material improvement is the change in outlook of the people instilling in them an ambition for a richer and fuller life and developing the capacities of the individual so that he can master matters for himself.’ In the beginning only 55 projects for intensive development, covering about 18,500 villages with a total population of about 15.2 million were selected.
The essence of the programme was to ensure people’s participation right from the start. The basic aims of CDP in terms of its immediate and ultimate goals have been summarized by renowned social scientist S.C.
Dube (1955) as under:
(i) To provide for a substantial increase in the country’s agricultural production, and for improvements in the system of communications, in rural health and hygiene, and in village education.
(ii) To initiate and direct a process of integral culture change aimed at transforming the social and economic life of the villages.
The main target areas of the projects were:
(1) Agriculture and related matters,
(6) supplementary employment,
(8) social welfare, and
Since the launching of CDP in 1952, the programme has undergone many changes. Some of the concepts related to the programme have been refined. It is to be noted that the nomenclature has also changed now from ‘community development’ to ‘rural development’.
Summarizing the ethos of the whole programme of CDP, R.N. Saxena (1956) observed, ‘The foundation on which the whole superstructure of CDP is to be built is essentially the human factor—self-help, self-reliance and community life.’ Hence, the people’s active participation is the most essential factor for the success of the programme.
The programme (CDP) was evaluated at two levels:
(a) Government level, and
(b) Private agencies, institutions or by individuals.
The Government of India established a Programme Evaluation Organization (PEO) under the Planning Commission to make appraisal of the ongoing projects and to identify the weaknesses and provide explanation for the response given by the people to the projects. Evaluation of the CDP’s was also done by a number of Indian and foreign social scientists like A.R. Desai, S.C. Dube, Oscar Lewis, J. Mandelbaum, M. Opler, Carl Taylor, etc.
Some of the major criticisms are as under:
1. The main criticism was that the whole programme of CDP became highly bureaucratized. Renowned social scientist S.C. Dube noted that the planning was from the top (bureaucrats) down. The people of the below (villagers) were passive receivers and onlookers of the programme. There was least involvement of the people at all levels—from planning to the execution stage.
2. A.R. Desai, a renowned rural sociologist, held that the sociological assumptions on which the CDPs were based, viz., that all individuals, groups, sections and strata forming the village community had common interests to bind them together, that the common interests will create enthusiasm, that interests of different sections of the community were not irreconcilably conflicting, were not correct.
3. Oscar Lewis maintained that there were considerable confusions and conflicts with regard to powers and duties among the staff of different departments. As a result, there was much overlap in the programmes.
4. Carl Taylor said that the government machinery failed to assimilate the true spirit underlying the whole programme. Bureaucrats worked like bosses, not as friends or guides of the people.
5. It was observed almost by all evaluators that corruption was widespread in the implementation of the programme at all levels. Only a meagre part of the budgetary allocation was actually spent for the people. In 1985 the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi opined that only 15 paise in a rupee reach to the needy people.
6. Most of the benefits of CDP and allied schemes went to the big farmers.
7. Food production did not show any marked increase in spite of huge investment on agricultural development.
In a nutshell, it may be mentioned that all evaluators had felt that the CDPs were desirable and it was a good technique of rural reconstruction but almost all of them concluded that the rural people could not be mobilized as was envisaged in the programme.
They did not actively and willingly participate in any schemes of the programme at any stage. They considered the whole programme as government programme—government sponsored and government executed—and not of their own. Even, the government could not instill the required confidence in the people about this programme.
Not only this, it was acutely felt that there was a great lack of coordination between different schemes of development. The whole structure of the programme was fragmented and overlapping. As such, the whole programme of CDP was seen as failed. Its main objectives could not be fulfilled. Then started a search for its failure.
The main aim of this search was to find the answer of this most potent question—how could the enthusiasm of the people aroused and their active participation enlisted in this programme? It was suggested that there should be unified planning and integrated functioning of all schemes of rural development. Besides integrated planning, an integrated administrative structure (a combined agency at the district level) too was suggested for implementation of the planned programmes.
To find out the answer of the question posed above and to search the ways and means to make the programmes a success, in 1956, the Balwant Rai Mehta Committee was constituted to study and review the working of CDP. The committee submitted its report in 1957 suggesting the establishment of Panchayati Raj—a scheme of democratic and decentralization.
The panchayats were expected to tackle village problems at the grassroots level and mobilize local manpower resources for purpose of economic and social progress. The Mehta Committee felt that active participation of the rural people in the schemes of development can be persuaded only when the developed machinery works under the elected representatives of the people.
The committee has, therefore, recommended devolution of development and decentralization of machinery of administration. It recommended the setting up of elected democratic bodies at the village, block and district levels and the entrusting of all planning and developmental activities to these bodies.
These recommendations were later on accepted by the National Development Council (NDC) in 1958 and various states in India started the implementation of the scheme of Panchayati Raj. Rajasthan is the first state where this scheme was launched on the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi on October 2, 1959. This scheme was inaugurated by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the then Prime Minister, at Nagaur (Rajasthan).