Other Rural Development Programmes

OTHER RURAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMMES

Rural Employment

  • Unemployment as well as underemployment kills the skills and its effect is more perceptible in rural areas compared to urban localities. Providing additional employment opportunities in rural areas invariably is an in built component of all the rural development programmes. The Government of India has taken up various employment generation schemes to alleviate poverty in rural areas. These schemes include Rural manpower programme, Crash scheme for Rural Employment, Pilot Intensive Rural Employment programme, Food for Work Programme, National Rural Employment Programme (NREP) and Rural Landless Employment Guarantee Programme (RLEGP). In April, 1989 the two on going employment programmes RLEGP and NREP were merged into a single rural employment programme and is named as Jawahar Rozgar Yojana which was latter restructured and streamlined and renamed as Jawahar Gram Samridhi Yojana (JGSY). This Yojana was launched on 1 April, 1999 with a two fold objective of creating village infrastructure including durable assets and generation of supplementary employment for the unemployed poor in the rural areas.
  • Funds are allocated to the states on the basis of incidence of poverty. Within the states the allocation is done on the basis of SC/ST rural population. The village panchayats are empowered to choose the work on the basis of felt needs of the people. However, preference is given to works, which create economically productive assets. DRDA/ Zila Parishads will release the funds to village panchayats for implementation of the projects at village level.

Employment Assurance Scheme (EAS)

  • This scheme came into operation on 2nd October, 1993 and it is being implemented in all the rural blocks of the country. The main objective of the scheme is to provide assured employment of 100 days of unskilled manual work to the rural poor who are in need of it. The scheme is open to all men and women in the age group of 18 - 60 years in rural areas. The expenditure under this scheme is shared by Centre and States in the proportion of 75 : 25 respectively. The central assistance is released directly to the DRDA or Zila Parishad and the District Collector or the Deputy Commissioner is the implementing authority of the scheme.

Drought Prone Area Programme (DPAP)

  • The Drought Prone Area Programme was started in 1973 with a view to minimize the adverse effects of drought on production of crops and livestock and productivity of land, water and human resources through integrated development of the natural resources. The other objectives include conservation and development of natural resources and ultimately to improve the socio economic condition of the resource poor and disadvantaged sections of the society.
  • The programme is under implementation in 946 blocks of 149 districts in 13 states. The funds of this programme are shared by the Centre and the concerned State on 50 : 50 basis.

Desert Development programme (DDP)

  • The DDP was started in the year 1977-78 in the hot deserts of Rajasthan, Gujarat and Haryana, and the cold deserts of Jammu & Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh. It aims at capacity building and empowerment of village community. Since, 1995-96, a new approach was adopted based on watershed development and under this programme a large area of land was brought under afforestation and pasture development.

The Integrated Wastelands Development Programme (IWDP)

  • The programme was started in the year 1989-90. This is being implemented from 1st April 1995 onwards on watershed basis under Watershed Development. The Scheme is being implemented through ICAR, State Agricultural Universities (SAUs), Government and private institutions having adequate infrastructure facilities. This project is being implemented in 25 states of India covering an area of 2.96 lakh hectares by May, 2000.

Technology Development, Extension and Training Scheme (TDET)

  • This scheme was launched in 1993-94 to develop suitable technologies for the reclamation of wastelands for sustained production of food, fuel-wood, fodder etc. It is being implemented by ICAR, SAUs, DRDAs and Government institutions having adequate institutional framework and organizational back up.

Council for Advancement of People’s Action and Rural Technology (CAPART)

  • CAPART is a registered society and operating from September, 1986 with New Delhi as its Headquarters. It aims at encouraging, promoting and assisting voluntary action for enhancement of rural prosperity by providing financial assistance to voluntary organizations. It is formed by merging two autonomous bodies Peoples’ Action for Development India (PADI) and Council for Advancement of Rural Technology (CART). The schemes covered by CAPART for rendering financial assistance include DWCRA, IRDP, organization of beneficiaries of anti poverty programme, Jawahar Rozgar Yojana and Advancement of Rural Technology Schemes.
  • CAPART has recently established nine regional committees at Ahmedabad, Bhubaneswar, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Patna, Chandigarh, Dharwad and Lucknow which are empowered to consider, sanction and monitor projects up to an outlay of Rs.10 lakhs.

National Agricultural Extension Project (NAEP)

  • It was launched in 1983. The objective of NAEP was to bridge the gap between research and extension systems, so that the transfer of technology can take place at a much faster rate, resulting in higher production.

National Agriculture Development Programme (NADP) or Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY)

  • Concerned by the slow growth in the Agriculture and allied sectors, the National Development Council (NDC), resolved in 2007 that a special Additional Central Assistance Scheme (RKVY) be launched. The NDC resolved that agricultural development strategies must be reoriented to meet the needs of farmers and called upon the Central and State governments to evolve a strategy to rejuvenate agriculture. The NDC reaffirmed its commitment to achieve four percent annual growth in the agricultural sector during the XI Plan.

Basic Features of the RKVY

  • The RKVY aims at achieving 4% annual growth in the Agriculture sector during the XI Plan period, by ensuring a holistic development of Agriculture and allied sectors. The main objectives of the scheme are to:
    • incentivise the states so as to increase public investment in Agriculture and allied sectors;
    • provide flexibility and autonomy to states in the process of planning and executing agriculture and allied sectors schemes;
    • ensure the preparation of Agriculture plans of the districts and the states based on Agro-Climate conditions, availability of technology and natural resources;
    • ensure that the local needs/crops/priorities are better reflected in the Agricultural plans of the states;
    • achieve the goal of reducing the yield gaps in important crops, through focused interventions;
    • maximize returns to the farmers in Agriculture and allied sectors;
    • bring about quantifiable changes in the production and productivity of various components of Agriculture and allied sectors by addressing them in a holistic manner;
  • These guidelines are applicable to all the states and Union Territories that fulfill the eligibility conditions.

SREP (Strategic Research and Extension Plan)

  • It is the process of finding the best scenario for agricultural development and setting the best path to reach that destination by rigorous analysis and choices about goals, opportunities and threats, strengths and weaknesses with respect to agricultural development in a district.
    • Goals-what is intended to be accomplished?
    • Opportunities and threats- what is needed and feasible?
    • Strengths and weaknesses-what is the capability of doing things?
  • SREP document provides the details of problems and technological needs for agricultural development in a district. Basic aim of SREP is to link the research and extension system with the farmers. It is a bottom up approach exercise carried out at the district level to identify the technological and training needs of the farmers. It speaks about extension and research priorities to be undertaken by the extension and research system based on the grass root analysis carried out by the SREP team. It is a comprehensive document prepared for the purpose of understanding the district agricultural scenario and to undertake need based research and extension programmes.
  • While the farmers require a wider range of support to address the emerging challenges, extension mainly functions as an agency for technology dissemination. Market extension has been a recent addition but it is understood and implemented mostly as provision of output price information in various markets and this is highly inadequate to address the challenges in marketing. Other extension support facilities created in the country include, farmer training centres at the district level; SAMETI (State Agricultural Management Extension and Training Institute) at the state level; EEI (Extension Education Institute) at the regional level; and MANAGE (National Institute for Agricultural Extension Management) at the national level.
Last modified: Friday, 4 May 2012, 8:16 AM