The rural development trajectory in India has been appreciated for successful interventions, yet the country has a long way to go in terms of eradicating poverty and bridging the development gap between rural and urban centres. A look from a historical perspective on the developmental strategies in the country give us a fair idea of approach to rural development having undergone an ideal shift over the last few decades, from that of a ‘top-down’ to a ‘bottom-top’ approach.
India adopted a development strategy of centralisation until the 1990s, but the centrally administered support programs and planned interventions like community development and integrated rural development were not as effective in substantial rural poverty alleviation as expected. These shortcomings led the think tank in India to realise the ineffectiveness of the top-down approach or the ‘trickle down’ effects of economic growth in taking too long to reach the poor, and hence the need for decentralisation was envisaged.
The transferring of power and authority from the central/state government to the local level and to non-government and private organisations is termed as decentralisation. It enables the participation of rural poor in decision-making that affects their daily lives, minimise chances of misunderstanding, assess the outcome of their own decisions, understand the problems and complexities of administration, planning and management, accept responsibility for failure and develop a sense of belonging and commitment to civil society.
For the formulation and execution of various programmes of economic development and social justice, Article 40 of the Indian Constitution provided for decentralisation in the form of a general directive to the state to establish Panchayati Raj institutions at the village level. Presently, plenty of central and state-sponsored schemes are being enforced in a direct or indirect way through panchayats on many aspects including education, health, income security, water and sanitation, housing and roads.
Unfortunately, either political pressure or changes in growth strategies and policies of the government in most states caused the promising start towards decentralisation to fade. The progress of the decentralisation process was hampered by not following up the devolution of powers and resources to panchayats.
The launching of Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana (SAGY), by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has revived the concept of gram swaraj or village democracy into reality by empowering all the sections of the society to participate in various aspects related to village development, in particular, decision-making and resource allocation. This programme is initiated with the objective to strengthen local democracy through robust and transparent gram panchayats and active gram sabhas, facilitating overall good governance. Each Member of Parliament under this flagship scheme is assigned the task to motivate and drive development of best quality amenities and opportunities in these villages. MPs are required to lead and foster these villages and mobilise the participation of local community as they are transformed into ‘model villages’ which could be a shining example for replication elsewhere.
With a comprehensive approach towards development, the scheme is unparalleled. It conceives of overall development of the village across various fields such as agriculture, education, health, sanitation, environment, livelihoods, etc. Apart from supporting activities related to development of institutional and social infrastructure, it stresses on raising the living standards of village people along with accumulation of social capital. Under this scheme, each MP can adopt any village for the Adarsh Gram initiative except their own village or that of their spouse. Lok Sabha members are free to opt for any village under their constituencies, where urban MPs can select one from the nearest rural area. For Rajya Sabha members, the selection of the village should be from the state where they represent with members. Every member was instructed to adopt one village initially and two others later on, out of which the first village was to be transformed as model village by 2016 and all the three villages were to be ready as model villages by 2019. Thereafter, members need to adopt one village every year with the objective of ensuring five model villages by 2024. Following this approach, the entire team of MPs combined together can give their contribution in turning up 6,433 model villages by 2024. Total number of Gram Panchayats covered under the scheme will be 2,65,000.
The success of this flagship scheme depends on the role played by technology and innovations. Application of advanced and cost-efficient technologies in the field of livelihoods, agriculture, building and road construction would vastly improve quality of life and expand the horizon of opportunities, apart from facilitating improved monitoring. The first state to formalise this approach as a development strategy as part of its Smart Village/Smart Ward Programme is Andhra Pradesh. This programme is launched with the vision to implement an integrated local development process around the principles of inclusion, empowerment, bottom-up participation, equity, social justice, inter-sectoral convergence and self-management.
Individuals, institutions or private organisations were encouraged to partner villages and strengthen the development process by facilitating the communities, in particular, women, youth and deprived and marginalised communities in society while integrating different sectoral verticals of the government under the Smart Village programme bringing a new dimension to governance.
Their role is to act as a bridge between the village body and the government to determine the development requirements, plug them into the relevant government schemes, and monitor their implementation. Their responsibility will also include mobilisation of any additional funds and relevant technical support for development projects.
The desired outcomes of the approach to development can only be achieved by effective coordination and systemic monitoring towards its implementation.
The state government will also play an effective part in the implementation of the programme by setting up various committees at state, district, mandal and village level for an independent monitoring of the development process. Moreover, taking the participatory approach that involves self-monitoring as well as learning will ensure that all the key stakeholders in the Smart Village Programme, including sponsors and service providers, partake and understand the process, degree of participation, performance, progress, and maintain persistency towards sustainability of the development initiatives.
Moreover, advisory boards have to be set up at the village level with the authority for decision-making and implementation of the approach for effective governance. The crucial part of this approach is the provision for basic social and economic infrastructure, creating human and institutional capacity, creating more jobs and aim at growth areas in sectors recognised for increased resource use efficiency.
The aforementioned participatory approach is based on the belief that marginalised people of community are the best judge of the challenges they face and how to overcome them. However, to make any participatory approach to rural development successful, people having the requisite information and incentives and bearing the responsibility for both political and economic consequences of their decisions should be given the control rights in governance structures.
However, this devolution of power to local authorities and communities most of the times lead to disappointment as the local power elite authorised for the development process may thwart the process of achieving public delivery of social services. Hence, decentralisation through participatory approach should also include serious efforts to transform the existing structures of power within communities where disadvantaged sections of the community also get the opportunities for participation and raising their concerns.