The main objective behind creating the Panchayati Raj was Rural development and has been established in all Indian states except Nagaland, Meghalaya and Mizoram, in all Union Territories except Delhi and certain other areas.
These areas include:
Indian villages had Panchayats consisting of five persons since ancient times, having both executive and judicial powers to handle various rural issues like land distribution, tax collection, or any disputes arising in the village area.
In the pre-independence period, Mughals and Britishers had undermined the importance of the village panchayats. Even Mahatma Gandhi wanted the empowerment of Panchayats for the development of rural areas.
Thus, understanding its importance, our Constitution makers included a provision for Panchayats in part IV of our constitution. They organized the Village Panchayats with powers and authority endowed to enable them to function as units of self-government. A number of committees were appointed by the Indian Government to study the implementation of self-government at the rural level and also recommend steps in achieving the desired goal.
The committees appointed are as follows:
The Panchayati Raj formal organization and structure was firstly recommended by the Balwant Rai committee in 1957 to examine the Community Development Programme,1952.
The Committee in November 1957, recommended the establishment of the scheme of ‘democratic decentralization', which later came to be known as Panchayati Raj. It was recommended for a three-tier system at the village, block and district level and also for direct election of the village-level panchayat. The first state to establish Panchayati Raj was Nagaur district, Rajasthan on October 2, 1959.
Later in December 1977, Ashok Mehta Committee was appointed on Panchayati Raj and submitted its report with various recommendations to revive and strengthen the declining Panchayati Raj system in the country in August 1978.
The report included the two-tier system of panchayat, regular social audit, representation of political parties at all levels of panchayat elections, provisions for regular election, reservation to SCs/STs in panchayats and a minister for panchayati raj in state council of ministers. Further, in 1985, G V K Rao Committee was appointed which recommended some more measures to strengthen the Panchayati Raj Institutions.
In the year 1986, LM Singhvi Committee was appointed which recommended the constitutional status of Panchayati Raj Institutions and constitutional provisions to ensure regular, free and fair elections to the Panchayati Raj Bodies.
Followed by his recommendations, a bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha by Rajiv Gandhi’s government in July 1989 to constitutionalize Panchayati Raj Institutions but was rejected in Rajya Sabha.
Due to the fall of the government, the bill was brought by the V P Singh government. A new bill was introduced by the P V Narashima Rao’s government in Lok Sabha in September 1991 which finally emerged as the 73rd Constitutional Amendment Act, 1992 and came into action on 24th April 1993.
The 73rd Amendment Act enacted in 1992 added a new part-IX and part-XI schedule containing a list of 29 functional items for Panchayats. The act made various statutory provisions for the establishment, empowerment and smooth functioning of Panchayati Raj institutions.
The salient features of this amendment are as follows:
Some of the provisions which are not binding on the States are:
The state legislatures enact laws to endow powers and authority to the Panchayats to enable their functions of local government.
The Panchayati Raj Institution plays a crucial role in boosting agricultural productivity, improving rural livelihoods, increasing food security and promoting agriculture for economic growth. They provide a critical support service for rural producers by addressing the new challenges confronting agriculture, transformation in the global food and agricultural system, rise of supermarkets and educating them about the importance of food safety, growth in non-farm rural employment and agribusiness, protecting the natural resource base from deteriorating and climate change and health challenges affecting rural livelihoods.
The Indian constitution has developed a framework for designing extension systems, impact analysis and multiple research programs for understanding the extension projects. Their agricultural extension research is closely aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including SDG 1, SDG 2, SDG 4 and SDG 8.
The main objectives of this act were to ensure equal status and opportunities for everyone, especially, the weaker and the exploited sections of the rural population. At the time of independence, the agrarian structure was distributed by the concentration of land ownership Zamindars, Jagirdars and large owners of the land had which did not contribute significantly in the production process. The majority of actual cultivators had no ownership rights on land which they cultivated. This was the root cause of the agriculture crisis in the Indian agricultural economy.
In such a situation the cultivators have no option but to feed the parasitic landlords. They were charged with 50-70 percent of the gross production as the land charger. They were also asked to provide free labor to the landlords. The government after independence realized that for rural development, the economic standard of villages needs to be uplifted.
The objectives of the Panchayati Raj land reforms policy are to:
The Indian constitution focuses on expanding and enhancing water resources to improve agricultural production and productivity by implementing a range of water management activities for agricultural purposes, including construction and rehabilitation of irrigation systems, small-scale water storage projects, watershed conservation such as forestry, on-farm water management and community-based water resource management.
With the increasing population, the requirement for nutritious food is also increasing steeply. Animals are an integral form of agriculture as they are used to derive milk, meat, eggs, wool, silk, for labor, etc. As the animals are such a crucial part of agriculture, they require proper care and management.
Animal husbandry is the practice of caring and breeding domestic animals, developing genetic traits, high yielding, disease resistance, etc. It involves poultry farming, breeding and raising livestock like buffaloes, cattle, goats, camels, horses, sheep, etc. and fisheries.
Animal breeding aims to develop high-yielding animals and improve the qualities of the products they produce.
The process involves the maintenance of honeybees hives for the production of honey and beeswax is known as beekeeping or apiculture beekeeping.
Fisheries play a critical part in ensuring the food and economic security of our country. But, most of the fish populations are not managed as per the best scientific advice and best practices leading to the extinction of many important marine species.
In order to secure the well-being of the marine habitat and ecosystem effective governance is required at every level.
The constitution has taken several efforts for the improvement of multi-species fisheries management policies based on sustainable exploitation and maintenance of living marine resources:
In 1950, the Indian Government initiated the festival for tree planting and became the first country to launch social forestry.
Urban Forestry: The aim is to bring trees to the door of the urban people for the beautification of houses, roads, vacant lands and creation of tree reserves, in towns and cities.
Rural Forestry: It focuses on the plantations of multi-utility trees at specific distances in arrows like agro-forestry.
Farm Forestry: The government provided farmers with incentives in the farm forestry and encouraged them to plant trees on their own. A farmer requires fire wood for cooking and agricultural implements, fodder for cattle and manure for his fields. By planting trees on his land, he can become self-sufficient with regard to these essential needs and can provide surplus sales.
In 1950, the Indian Government initiated the festival for tree planting and became the first country to launch social forestry.
Urban Forestry: The aim is to bring trees to the door of the urban people for the beautification of houses, roads, vacant lands and creation of tree reserves, in towns and cities.
Rural Forestry: It focuses on the plantations of multi-utility trees at specific distances in arrows like agro-forestry.
Farm Forestry: The government provided farmers with incentives in the farm forestry and encouraged them to plant trees on their own. A farmer requires fire wood for cooking and agricultural implements, fodder for cattle and manure for his fields. By planting trees on his land, he can become self-sufficient with regard to these essential needs and can provide surplus sales.
MFP provides livelihood for people who live in or near forests providing them with food, fruits, medicines and other consumption items and also provide cash income through sales.
MFP includes forest produce of plant origin, bamboo, fodder, leaves, gums, waxes, resins and many forms of food like nuts, wild fruits, honey, tusser etc.
Urban Forestry: The aim is to bring trees to the door of the urban people for the beautification of houses, roads, vacant lands and creation of tree reserves, in towns and cities.
Rural Forestry: It focuses on the plantations of multi-utility trees at specific distances in arrows like agro-forestry.
Farm Forestry: The government provided farmers with incentives in the farm forestry and encouraged them to plant trees on their own. A farmer requires fire wood for cooking and agricultural implements, fodder for cattle and manure for his fields. By planting trees on his land, he can become self-sufficient with regard to these essential needs and can provide surplus sales.
The small scale industries output contributes almost 40% of the gross industrial value-added, 45% of the total exports from India. It is the second largest employer of human resources after agriculture.
Various protective and promotional measures have been undertaken by the Indian Government to protect, support and promote the small scale enterprises and help them become self-supporting.
The Protective measures include:
While most of the incentives are provided by the Central Government and remaining is offered by the state governments to attract investments and promote small industries with an objective to enhance industrial-production and generate employment in their respective states.
The main objective behind this scheme is to promote khadi, village and cottage industries and to provide employment to the under-employed people of the rural sections. Tamil Nadu occupies second position in the production of khadi and third in the development of village and cottage industries.
To promote the development of this section, Government of India has passed several schemes listed below:
The objectives of the scheme is to provide support to the traditional industries and artisans for their long term sustainability, sustained employment, enhance the marketability of products, equip traditional artisans with the improved skills, make provision for common facilities, improved tools and equipments for artisans, strengthening the governance systems with the stakeholders active participation and build up innovated and traditional skills with improved technologies and advanced processes.
MPDA merges different schemes implemented by the Khadi sector including publicity, marketing, market promotion and marketing development assistance. It provides subsidies for the construction of Khadi plazas to ensure increased earnings for artisans.
Coir Board is a promotion scheme for Export Market for promotion of product and market specific promotional programmes for popularizing coir and coir products in markets abroad, participating in international affairs, promotional programmes, seminars to attain sustainable development of Indian Coir Industry and assisting the entrepreneurs participating in such programmes through export market development assistance scheme.
S&T helps in undertaking, assisting or encouraging scientific technological and economic research for maintaining and assisting one or more research institutions.
Two R&D institutes : CCRI Alleppey and CICT Bangalore are functioning under Coir Board.
Scheme for providing financial assistance to Coir units under Coir Udyami Yojana(CUY)
Objective behind running these schemes are:
The Indian Government under this scheme provided shelter to the homeless since the country gained independence.
Soon after independence the nation faced a huge housing crisis due to large-scale migration. The Government of India decided to provide shelter to refugees of the partition in the 1950s
The GoI introduced the Village Housing Program (VHP) in 1957 which allowed individuals and cooperatives availed housing loans up to INR 5,000. In 1969, the GoI introduced the House Sites-cum-Construction Assistance Scheme (HSCAS) and constructed 67,000 houses over the next 10 years.
The GoI further launched various employment programs like National Rural Employment Program (NREP, 1980) and the Rural Landless Employment Guarantee Program (RLEGP-1983) for Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes (SCs/STs) and rescued bonded laborers.
The GoI launched IAY in June, 1985 for the construction of houses for SC, ST, and rescued bonded laborers.
The Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD), a Ministry under the GoI’s launched PMAY-G to provide 29.5 million pukka houses with basic amenities including toilets, electricity connections and clean drinking water.
Rajiv Awas Yojanas’ main aim was to provide every citizen with access to basic amenities, shelter and civic infrastructure and bring all existing slums under the legal system.
Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) is a government-initiated scheme to provide affordable housing for the weaker sections of the country. This Housing Scheme has two components : Urban (U) and Gramin (G) and make sure that every house has toilets, electricity connection under Saubhagya Yojana, LPG Gas connection under Ujjwala Yojana, drinking water and Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana banking facilities, etc.
Almost 15 states and union territories (UTs) have launched rural housing schemes in India and constructed 27 lakh houses from 2001 to 2005.
The Government plans to provide safe and adequate water for all domestic needs to rural sections on a sustainable basis.
The Government of India launched the Jal Jeevan Mission to provide safe and adequate drinking water to all the houses of rural sections through taps. The Jal Jeevan Mission is based on the community approach to water thereby making it everyone’s priority.
The broad objectives of the Mission are:
The following components are supported under JJM
Indian Government has launched various schemes for fuel tree plantation in the fuel scarcity districts. The forest department has implemented various schemes like forest afforestation, social forestry programme etc. to meet the fuel wood requirement. These schemes mark down the utilization of forest area and common wastelands for raising fuel, timber and fodder.
Local people living in or nearby forest are involved in the task creating additional employment and income for them. Rural Agricultural department task is to implement agro-forestry in private wasteland and social forestry in panchayat vested wasteland and tanks.
Agriculture and forest departments undertake the fodder development programmes and production farms. The Animal Husbandry Department manages the fodder development activities which motivates the livestocks owners to take up fodder cultivation to meet their requirements. High quality fodder seeds, fodder slip and seedlings are supplied to the farmers and technical assistance in intensifying fodder production.
Formation of new roads, bridges, State & District highways and other specialised road programs etc. is the responsibility of the State Highway Department. The Panchayat Union takes up the responsibility for the formation of union roads, link road, rural roads and various programs coming under rural development scheme. The engineers from the state highway department are assigned with these tasks.All the material like pavement, stone etc.. are provided by the village panchayat.
The various objectives of the Panchayat assigned with the task are:
Rural area’s primary sources of electricity are non-grid sources like solar home systems, rechargeable batteries and mini-grids. While most rural households are concerned about high connection cost and billing.
Frequent and the long duration of power cuts also deter rural houses from adopting electric grid-connections. Also, the electricity consumption in rural areas is less due to fewer appliances in use.
For rural electrification the Government of India has launched the scheme “Deendayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana '' and Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana (RGGVY) scheme for providing electricity distribution infrastructure. Under this scheme, the government has sanctioned 921 projects to electrify 1,21,225 un-electrified villages and rural households.
Energy is the primary input to drive the life cycle and improve it and its consumption is closely related to the progress of mankind. India is dependent on conventional sources of energy like thermal, hydro and nuclear. The conventional sources of energy are non-renewable sources of energy which are on the verge of depletion to a great extent. Non conventional sources of energy are being recycled continuously in nature and are inexhaustible. The energy is generated by using renewable processes of energy generation like wind, solar, small hydro, tides, geothermal heat and biomass and does not cause environmental pollution.
The Government of India created the Department of Non-Conventional Energy Sources (DNES) in the year of 1982 to handle all the aspects relating to new renewable energy. In 1992, it got upgraded into a separate Ministry of Non-Conventional Energy Sources (MNES) and beacem Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) in October, 2006.
Objectives of the Ministry are:
The poverty rate in rural areas is more as compared to urban areas. The geographical factors like droughts, floods can be predominant in influencing poverty, by decreasing incomes from agricultural production. The lack of stable government, better law and democratic accountability along with corruption are some more factors which increase poverty with an increase in the inequality of income distribution.
Therefore, Poverty alleviation programmes in India became very important especially for rural India. The Indian Government has launched various poverty alleviation schemes to address poverty in rural areas ensuring rural development.
Some rural poverty alleviation programmes in India are :
These Rural poverty alleviation programmes have improved the access to employment, food, finances and other basic amenities for people giving access to developmental processes and facilities in rural areas.
Huge part of Indian population still resides in rural India. There are many issues that the Indian education system is undergoing and failing to impart the kind of education that modern times demand.
Let see various issues existing in our rural education system:
Technical training and vocational education is essential for the development of skilled human resources in rural development because of the low educational status of the rural population.
Training of Rural Youth for Self Employment (TRYSEM): The programme helps train rural youth for marketing skills and technology in the age group of 18-35 years.
The other objectives of this programme are to:
KVKs scheme was introduced by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India. In the last 22 years, 265 KVKs have been developed to impart vocational and skill oriented training to the farmers, rural youth, farm women and field level functionaries.
They help bridge the gap between the available technologies and their application for increased production.
KVKs organize around thousands of training courses every year consisting of farmers, farm women and rural youth. Many other programmes like Farmers meetings, Field days, Film shows, Exhibitions, Farmers Fairs are also organized.
NGOs work for training rural youths, school dropouts, women and even adults in local-specific areas for one week to one year. Funds are provided to NGOs under the following six schemes:
Vigyan Ashram: A non-government organization located in remote rural areas to bring rural development by imparting training to rural youths through TVET intervention.
The basic principles and philosophies of these Institute includes:
Non-formal education caters to all sections of the rural society for the betterment of living conditions of people living there.
Adult education aims to serve all those who were forced to leave school early due to personal reasons like young adults, womens etc. It provides a range of informal activities like dancing and crafts, films, music and drama.
The various schemes for Adult programmes launched by the Indian Government are:
These schemes provide commission to actively involve the universities and colleges all over the country in the Adult Education Programmes laying special emphasis on women, Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribes, Physically handicapped and people from rural and backward areas.
After independence, the growth of libraries has been remarkable. The rural population consists of nearly 88 percent of illiterate people.
The First library founded in 1951 after independence was the Delhi Public Library as the first UNESCO Public Library Project under the Government of India. The aim of the library was to:
According to the survey, there were 32,000 libraries in India, with more than 7,100,000 books in March 1954.
The Government of India decided creating state library networks with following objectives:
The following are some of the recommendations related to public libraries for rural sections:
Indian culture is the most vibrant culture in the world. Majority of India's population lives in the rural areas. The social and cultural aspects of rural India have been slow. In order to pursue a culture-sensitive approach to rural development, we need to understand cultural diversity and its effects on the development process.
Culture has been the platform for all socio-economic development of our country since Independence. Our traditional practices provide a stimulus to trade and commerce patronizing our culture. Varied festivals, fairs and other cultural events, month after month present a variety of opportunities for trade and commerce.
Due to technological advancement our cultural base is depleted. We need to initiate necessary action to preserve our culture. For example, the festival of Diwali was celebrated by lighting the traditional 'Diyas' (Lamps), symbolic of the victory of good over evil. But, now we see the same festival being celebrated by a variety of firing crackers.
The western-culture has overshadowed our cultural practices across the entire metropolis cities and towns. But, still our value based system appears to be in rural India which needs to be preserved and nurtured. The Government of India should take efforts to ensure that villagers and tribal people stay in the rural areas by providing them all they seek from the urban areas i.e. access to proper education, training and support, employment and income-generation opportunities.
Culture can help improve the rural areas and the quality of life of people living there. They can help:
Every village has some sort of marketing place to sell fruits, vegetables, groceries and a number of other articles. Road margins, street corners are some places where the markets are held. Some villages often have seasonal markets for trading livestocks and poultry.
In every panchayat many social and religious fairs and markets are organised regularly. Large number of people come to sell and buy products in these fairs. As these shops are situated in open places which may lead to selling of unhygienic food items.
Therefore the village panchayat should take preventive measures keeping in mind the following objectives like:
There are significant inequalities in access to quality and affordable health services in rural areas. They also face significant challenges in the provision of sanitation, solid waste management and drainage.
The Government of India started the first sanitation programme in 1986, The Central Rural Sanitation Programme to provide safe sanitation in rural areas. The programme focussed mainly on providing subsidies to people to construct sanitation facilities. It also raised awareness about sanitation by promoting local sanitary marts and a range of technological options.
The rural sanitation campaign objectives are:
The Government of India introduced the National Health Mission to strengthen health care and sanitation and reform the health sector. In 2015, the government launched Mission Indradhanush to increase immunisation coverage. In 2019, Swach Bharat Abhiyan was introduced towards ending open defecation.
India is the second most populated country in the world. Increase in the rate of population needs to be stabilised. Therefore, India formulated a National Family Planning Programme in the year 1952 for reducing the birth rate to stabilise the population.
Family limitation is compulsory and desirable to secure better health and upbringing of children. The Family Welfare Programme provides the states the additional manpower for improving the health status of women and children and to meet all the needs for fertility regulation.
In order to achieve a more rapid decline in birth rate, death rate and population growth rate, a Sub-Committee on Population was set up in the year 1992 by the National Development Council.
Currently some of the major areas of concern includes:
The focus should be laid on:
Family Welfare programme will provide :
Consequently, the access of women, especially of those belonging to Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes or other backward Classes and minorities in the rural areas to education, health and resources is inadequate. Therefore, they remain largely marginalized, poor and socially excluded.
The Government of India developed the Department of Women and Child Development on 30th January, 2006 to eradicate all the issues. The Women and Child Development (WCD) programme focuses on providing guidance for women empowerment and nurture their children.
The status of disability in India, particularly in the provision of education and employment for persons with mental retardation has had its recognition only after the enactment of the Persons with Disabilities Act(PWD), 1995.
This scheme involves the welfare of disabled, street children, child adoption, old age people, drug use prevention, beggars rehabilitation and awakening against various evils etc.
The government of India has to play a major role in strengthening the education, employment and the training facilities for the disabled in order to make them self-reliant and economically independent.
The objectives of the administrative councils working for the social welfare and the diasbled people are:
Indian Government has launched a number of schemes for the upliftment of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities by promoting educational opportunities, loans, school uniforms, note books, opening secondary and primary schools, coaching institutes and residential places etc.
The Government of India launched the following scheme working for the upliftment of Scheduled caste and tribes:
The Public Distribution System (PDS) is the Indian Food Security System developed for the management of scarcity through distribution of food grains at affordable prices. It is the important government policy established under the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution for management of the food economy in the country.
It is operated under the joint responsibility of the Central and the State Governments. for procurement, storage, transportation and bulk allocation of food grains to the State Governments. The operational responsibility including state allocation, identifying eligible families, issues related to Ration Cards and supervision of the functioning of Fair Price Shops (FPSs) etc. with the State Governments.
The commodities i.e. wheat, rice, sugar and kerosene are being allocated to the States for distribution. They can also distribute additional items of consumption through the PDS outlets like pulses, edible oils, salt, spices, etc
Under TDPS, beneficiaries were divided into two categories: Households below the poverty line or BPL; and Households above the poverty line or APL.
Government has enacted certain schemes for economic development and social justice along with maintenance of community assets by panchayats. According to which two or more panchayats may entrust to the panchayat union council with its consents and maintenance for any work.
The details of community assets are :