Initially this project was launched in 55 Community Development Blocks with an operational area of 400 to 500 square miles comprising of 300 villages and 2 lakh population in each block. The project area was divided into three development blocks with 100 each villages and 60 to 70 thousand population, groups with 5-10 villages. The project was headed by a Project Officers and Subject Matter Extension Officers in the disciplines of Agriculture, animal husbandry, industries, rural engineering, social education etc, and 60 multipurpose Village Level Workers (VLWs) one for each group villages.
Due to positive impact of community development programme, a need for rapid expansion was urgently felt. In 1953 the NES programme was launched with the idea of having wider coverage at a lower cost and more of people’s participation. NES block was headed by Block Development Officer (BDO) with Extension officers (Eos) and VLWs limited to 10 in 100 villages and 65,000 population and funds were drastically reduced compared to CDBs.
NES was thought of as the agency and CD as the method to bring about socio-economic transformation of people. This was the major development in the sphere of rural reconstruction in India.
Participants