Rural Development programmes in India suffers from lack of coordination and a sound apprisal system. Comment

[McGregor]

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[McGregor]

With 65% of our population living in rural areas (Census), widespread poverty, inequalities and social cleavages such as caste, languageetc. , rural development becomes imperative for Development administration. 

Challenge in coordnation and Performace Apprisal 

1. Lack of Vertical integration in programs of union, state and local government for e.g. in MP there is high overlapping between union and state schemes

2. Absence of horizontal coordination between directorate of state department, parastatals, DRDA etc.

3. Weak convergence between Civil society, NGOs, Voluntary organization in rural areas 

4. Weak collaboration between district office and Panachayti Raj institutions due to bureau pathologies such as elitism, status quoism etc. 

5. Third party performance apprisal of Rural program is not promotes. 

6. Poor capacity of social audit committees due to low technical and managerical skills 

7. Poor citizen awareness due to high level illiteracy rates , social constraints. 

Way forward

2nd ARC has discussed for greater convergence which is possible through establishment of district council for effective coordination, bolstering social audit committees by linking them with CAG, scrapping arastatal bodies and ultimately pro active citizen engagement (such as Kudumbshree model) for enabling good governance.