Community Projects: An Evaluation
By
C.V. H. RAO, M.A.
(I)
The
community projects programme has by now become familiar to the Indian
population as a gigantic programme for the development of rural areas in the
country. Though initially this programme was more or less restricted to schemes
for better agriculture and ‘grow more food’, there has been a gradual
transformation of it into what it was mainly intended to be–a programme of
total attack on rural under-developedness and for
comprehensive development of rural areas.
From
what has happened so far it is becoming increasingly evident that community
projects and their off-shoot, the national extension blocks, are only parts of
a continuing process’ of development of India’s rural areas, which has actually
been in operation almost always and which will have to go on, because there can
be no finality about, or end to, progress as such. This is a concept of basic
importance, which has to be borne in mind.
Two
years’ working of rural community development activity in
its present form has shattered some and confirmed certain other existing
notions on the subject, has demonstrated the need for
certain techniques, and revealed certain drawbacks in the programmes and
activities undertaken so far.
On
the broad ideal of rural community welfare or methods to be followed in that
regard there is no divergence of opinion. Subject to variations in conditions
in different parts of the country and in the problems confronting the rural
population in different States, its broad aspects are more or less
identical. But whatever the variations in the programmes, the fundamental fact
is that it is the people and not merely programmes, that if is personal
participation of individuals and not merely the impersonal interest of unintelligent
groups that are the objects of attention in them. The difference between the
earlier schemes in this respect and the present one consists in the
extensiveness of the area and the large masses of people that are to be covered
in the latter.
On
two broad fronts, efforts in the implementation of the community
projects scheme do not seem to have achieved the maximum results.
The advisory committees in project areas did not prove effective for the
purpose for which they were constituted and the measure of administrative
co-ordination, the pivot of the scheme, had not been commensurate with the
basic need implicit in it for a comprehensive attack on village problems. The
impact of earlier and pre-project experience, when un-coordinated departmental
activity was more or less the rule, had to be countered and some uniform
practices had to be evolved, which would be applicable to various project areas
and at the same time allow for local variations.
So
far as the project advisory committees are concerned, their
composition is impeccable but probably such that not much could be got out of
them. While their advice and co-operation are to be welcomed, in a number of
States their approach to their task lacked and still lacks helpfulness. In the
interests of expeditious execution of project work, sometimes they have had to
be by-passed and the need for consultation overlooked by project officers. That
may be regrettable but is inevitable; but these committees will make themselves
effective in the measure in which their members exhibit a predilection to
appreciate that community projects are a process in national regeneration into
which political animosities should not be interposed. It is a matter for
consideration, what should be done, when political or personal equations prevent
unprejudiced counsel to project officers on the part of representative
persons like M. L. A.’s and M. P.’s.
The
problem of ensuring administrative co-ordination is resolving itself through
internal adjustment, because State Governments realise
that community projects and rural development work are top priority activities.
Nevertheless there was in the initial stages the deadweight tradition of
un-coordinated and un-integrated departmental efforts that had to be broken.
Here, as the Evaluation Organisation’s Report rightly
states, the personal equation dominates and the personality, capacity and, more
than all, the seniority and authority of individual development commissioners
are important factors in engendering the assistance of other departmental
heads. While administrative co-ordination at the top level is being rapidly
provided, at the lower levels–district and village-difficulties are probably
not completely eliminated.
The
Evaluation Organisation has no ready-made answer to this ticklish problem: but
what would probably produce results is centralising
control at the district level in the collector or deputy commissioner and
making project officers realise that what they should
strive for is integration of the work of departmental staffs, so far as project
areas are involved, with that of project staffs and not exercise of control
over them. While programmes can be finalised with
comparative ease in project executive committees at the district level, at
which district officials of different departments are present, their
actual execution might be impeded if subordinate departmental officials have in
practice to answer two masters, or if village level workers
do not get their wholehearted support. Just as, at the top, the development commissioner’s
personal authority and seniority counts, the capacity
of project officers to evoke co-operation counts for much at the project and
village level. The suggestion in the report that project officers should be
drawn from different departments and, wherever possible, even from outside the
ranks of the regular services, is valuable and calls for
serious consideration from State Governments. Altogether the position in this
respect is steadily improving and we hear less complaint than
in the earlier stages of project work on the score of lack of administrative
co-ordination.
When
we reach down to the village level, the position calls for continuous vigilance
and improvement as it is here that co-ordination in a very real sense has to be
demonstrated. The village level worker occupies the centre
of attention here. If he has to discharge a multi-purpose responsibility, it
will be essential, firstly, to have a better type of worker than is generally
available at present, and secondly, that he should be one who can inspire
confidence and trust in the villagers.
The
community projects scheme has demonstrated that there is
no royal road to securing that intangible thing known as public co-operation,
and the only satisfactory road to it is the good work done
by the project staffs themselves and the maximum possible approximation of
local development schemes to the felt needs of the villagers. In States where
these conditions had existed or exist, whatever be the other impediments and
drawbacks, the active interest of the concerned villagers and their purposeful
participation in the work in hand was readily available. This, of course, is of
great practical significance and has been responsible for the success that has
been achieved.
While
everyone’s goodwill and co-operation are essential in work of the character
implied in community welfare, what seems more essential is the
active co-operation and maximum participation of the concerned
villagers, the development of local initiative and leadership in the sphere of
economic development, and lastly expert and sympathetic guidance to the people
in the technical sphere.
While
community improvement and rural extension work are not altogether new ideas or
new programmes in
The
measure of this response is undoubtedly not uniform throughout the country.
India is not, however, a small country nor are administrative standards or
development of people’s consciousness of the value of self-improving activity
uniform throughout. But once the villagers are impressed by the genuineness and
the sincerity of official efforts, they readily accept advice and follow the
lead given. This, as the Evaluation Report clearly shows, is more or less true
of all States and particularly true of schemes which satisfy the essential
needs of the rural population, such as improved seed, improved implements,
supply of fertilizers etc. The establishment of a village school or the
construction of an approach road has in a vast number of cases evoked ready and
enthusiastic response, and contributions in honey or labour
are ungrudgingly made. A phenomenon of immense social and economic
significance, this can be utilised to advantage in
future programmes. Social education organizers should prove their usefulness in
an increasing measure in harnessing this newly-generated incentive to
constructive effort for all kinds of community welfare work. Furthermore,
schemes for improvement in agricultural methods, spread of education, provision
of hospitals and maternity aid, etc., accepted by villagers in earlier stages
should be followed by a steady flow of extension activities through personal
contacts and regular visits to villages by extension staffs, a steady flow of
literature, pamphlets etc., on how to follow up the results achieved, and by
the use of visual aids and other methods. This is what justifies the
observation in the beginning, that rural community welfare is a continuous
process and not an ad hoc programme for which there is a point of
commencement and a point of termination.
(2)
What
about the future of community development programmes? This question has
reference to the continuance of work in the projects and the national extension
service blocks at the end of the first Five Year Plan period, and also to the
extension of the programme into new and uncovered areas. During the first two
years period, 1952-53 and 1953-54, the development programme is intended to
embrace 48,750 villages and 38 millions of India’s rural population, but the
target decided upon is that it should cover 120,000 villages or nearly
one-fourth of India’s rural area and about 80 million people by 1956.
In
this connection, the Evaluation Organisation has thrown out a few commendable
thoughts which should provide guidance for the future. Noting the diversities
in the pace of progress in different areas and the relatively slow progress
registered in some areas in comparison with others, its report points out that
these are due in part to the selection of the first set of projects in a
somewhat haphazard manner without, in all cases, adequate or satisfactory
preliminary surveys, and on the basis of not very well defined principles of
uniform applicability. An understandable anxiety to get into stride the new
scheme outpaced systematic and careful planning of work or ascertainment of
needs. Caution is, therefore, advised in the further extension of the scheme and
against bringing within its orbit areas where essential preliminary
investigations and surveys of local needs and requirements, resources of
man-power and potential financial contribution, and so on, have not been
undertaken. “The tasks involved in survey planning, phasing of programmes,
organisation, popularization and implementation,” says the Report, “had to be
more specifically weighed than was possible in the initial stages.” It adds
that, while the mistakes of the past should be avoided, it is correct to say
that “with every effort to make up the leeway in these matters, it would not be
possible to complete the first stage of development within the prescribed
period of three years. A total period of from five to six years would appear to
be necessary to allow a project to work under moral conditions.” This
caution-cum-counsel seems desiderated, and in rural welfare work, in which
villages and villagers at different levels of progress and of different mental
ranges, in many cases hidebound by long-established customs and traditions,
caste, family and other regulations have to be tackled, “hasten slowly” is a
counsel of wisdom. Consolidation before extension should be the guiding factor,
though the urgencies and demands of our rural needs are such that extension
cannot always wait on consolidation. We cannot in any case afford to risk
failure by rushing ahead in haste, even as we cannot afford to soft-pedal
progress by a waiting on events.
The
vital question is how and to what extent activities initiated in various
spheres in the community projects would be continued at the end of the
scheduled three year period. Serious thought undoubtedly needs to be devoted to
this issue from now onwards and State Governments, local boards and other local
organisations intimately associated with the
execution of the programmes have to be alerted regarding the responsibilities
and obligations, financial, administrative, supervisory and so on, that will
devolve on them. There is particular need to ensure adequate financial support
for the programmes, when foreign financial and technical aid, under the
India-U. S. Technical Aid Agreement, may diminish considerably or even stopped
altogether. During the first Five Year Plan period, financial outlay on the
community development and national extension programmes is expected to be of
the order of Rs. 101 crores
for the 3 years of the plan period, and expenditure of Rs.
46 crores (excluding the N. E. S. programme) has
already been budgeted for, of which Rs. 5 crores will be drawn from U. S. Technical Aid allocations.
Two
problems that demand attention in the immediate future, because of their
intimate bearing on the uninterrupted progress on community projects scheme,
are the training of personnel, particularly village level and extension workers
and social education organisers, and the grooming of
local organisations, to which supervision of welfare
activities and of various-institutions started under the impetus of the scheme
could be entrusted. The Five Year Plan envisages that, at the end of the Plan
period, about 120,000 villages covering a population of 75 million persons
should share the benefits of the programmes and in the second Plan there will
be a further extension of the programmes to cover the entire rural area. The personnel-requirements
for operating programmes of this magnitude are stupendous, not only because of
the numbers involved but also because of the time and labour
required for training them. Technically trained and equipped workers of proper calibre cannot be turned out overnight, and training within
the next two years of some 82,000 of them for various job responsibilities,
ranging from village level workers to social education organisers,
involves a formidable problem of providing training facilities.
Conferences
of project officers and development commissioners have from time to time
spelled out the need for adequate steps in this respect.
But the problem is one not merely of putting through a six weeks to a six
months course of training a number of persons diversely equipped for various
jobs, but also of recruiting the right kind of personnel, namely, those who are
technically qualified and capable of undertaking the multi-purpose duties in
villages. They should be competent to benefit from the training and imbued with
the proper spirit of service and willingness to work among and with the
villagers. It would seem that the Community Projects Administration can
advantageously enlist in this sphere the co-operation and assistance of Gandhian constructive workers, those engaged in work
connected with the Kasturba Trust, the Village
Industries Association and the Harijan Sevak Sangh etc.
If
village welfare work is to be carried-on on a more intensive scale, as it will
be under the second Five Year Plan, job opportunities will correspondingly
increase, and along with it employment potentialities in the rural areas. Are
our young men willing to exploit these opportunities, is a question, on the
answer to which depends at least a partial solution of the menacing unemployment
problem, The Community Projects Administration proceeds on the basic assumption
that village development work must be multi-purpose in its scope, from which
follows the conclusion that those employed in it should be essentially
multi-purpose personnel, who know something of everything about villagers’
needs and demands and can act as their friends, guides, and philosophers.
The
need for advance determination of measures for continuance of project
activities after 1956, is as important as the training of personnel. The
psychology for betterment engendered among India’s rural population generally
and the concrete schemes for local and community welfare undertaken or executed
in various projects and development blocs, and even more than that, the
spirit of emulative competition created among villagers in formulating and
implementing local welfare works and the growing demand for extension of the
area of the schemes, into which so much of effort and
money at different levels has gone–all these postulate that the good work
accomplished should be continuously extended. By far the best thing that should
happen is that development and welfare activities started and carried on during
the Plan period should move forward towards greater fulfillment through their
own momentum. The enthusiasm generated in the villagers by reason of the fact
that essential felt needs of their areas are being met through their own
efforts, labour and contribution, is a dynamic
incentive to action. But then enthusiasm without leadership to channel it into
beneficent paths will result in diffusion of efforts and dissipation of
resources. It is in providing such leadership that village organisations
like co-operative societies, panchayats, welfare
institutions and representative organisations of
villagers like ‘gram sanghas’, ‘gram vikasa mandals’ and others can
play the leading role. They are the training grounds for village leadership,
and they provide organisational meeting ground for
the village population.
The
place of co-operatives in rural Welfare requires precise definition and
adequate emphasis. Rural development through the co-operative movement has been
a long understood idea in this country. The Position accorded to co-operative
organisation in the community projects scheme is a tribute to the inherent
merits of that idea. The indifferent progress of the co-operative movement in
some States, largely due to the drawbacks of co-operators themselves, is a
warning against a repetition of mistakes.
The
community welfare idea in the present rural welfare scheme has a spiritual
affinity with the basic principles of the co-operative movement, and what is
wanted is a more effective dovetailing of the two. It would serve a useful
purpose if this objective is systematically encouraged in community project
areas in States like Madras and Bombay, where co-operation has made
comparatively better progress than in others. A vigilant supervision of their
working should eliminate the evils of self-seeking and other un-cooperative
practices on the part of co-operators that had brought co-operation into
disrepute. The ideal of a Co-operative Commonwealth will come within easy reach
if the rural welfare scheme makes greater and purposeful use of co-operatives
to serve both multi-purpose ends and the needs of different groups of villagers
like agriculturists, artisans, weavers and so on.
(3)
Under
the stimulus of the community projects scheme, a new spirit and a new
psychology are progressively being produced among the
rural population in India by cutting across family, caste and other
distinctions in most cases. To this I can bear witness by reason of my personal
visits to some of the projects. Whatever be the deficiencies and shortcomings
in particular areas in the working of these schemes, or shortfalls in the
achievement of targets prescribed, there is throughout the country today a
renovated hope that the problems of the rural people will not be just tinkered
with, but that in fact top priority is accorded to them, both in planning and
action. Example is always a more powerful stimulant to activity than precept,
and what is happening is the villages covered by the community projects and
national extension blocks, will leave an indelible psychological impress on the
villagers in the neighbouring non-project areas. The
path of further advance is thus facilitated.
This
is all to the good; and it is a source of encouragement to the planner that the
spirit of emulation for self-improvement is assuming dynamic shape and
dimensions. The physical or labour contribution is a
familiar mode of participation by villagers in almost all the States. And
during the first year of the programme the value of the labour
contributed or contributions made is estimated to be about Rs.
1.5 crores, as against a government contribution, of Rs. 2.45 crores. The Evaluation Organisation’s Report has an encouraging answer to give to
this question of popular participation. It bears testimony both to the ease
with which traditional habits of thought are being discarded and to the ready
responsiveness of rural populations in such activities as establishment of
schools, construction of roads, provision of maternity aid,
veterinary aid and so on. Some well-to-do persons in some areas do not
participate physically in local works, though prepared to contribute monetary
aid. But there is no doubt that, by and large, a change of outlook is taking
place towards manual labour, which is not regarded
with disparagement as
before.
While
the hopeful and encouraging aspects of community development work are many and
have deservedly earned commendation, the shortcomings and drawbacks noticed in
it should receive careful attention with a view to their elimination. In all
cases extension should be embarked upon after a careful-assessment of man-power,
the availability of technical personnel, local enthusiasm and associated
factors. The endeavour to enlist local co-operation,
to promote and perfect administrative co-ordination, to train up local
leadership on whom can devolve responsibilities for further progress, should be
constant and continuous. One eye should be rivetted
on removing defects and the other on further improving things where they are
already in good shape. And always the long-range problems of providing for the
effective continuance of the programmes and of bringing more areas within the
beneficent ambit of development activities have to be kept in view. The
financial aspect is no less important, and the directions in which and spheres
of activity for which foreign aid is presently available should be so ordered
that their progress will not be impeded by a partial or complete stoppage of
such aid. While uniformity in progress throughout the country may be
impracticable, the endeavour to attain such
uniformity in the largest possible measure should be vigorously pursued.
For
the future, rural progress has to be equated to the total or near-total
participation of the entire village population in a development activity like
digging an irrigation channel, construction of a school, etc., and also in the
development of the villager as a total individual. This may seem a tall order
which might involve considerable time to be achieved. Here comes the role of
the social educational programmes and of the social educator, and the latter
thus acquires a place of special importance in the scheme as such. The social
education programmes are presently concerned principally with promotion of
adult literacy and establishment of community recreation centres.
About 4000 literacy centres and about 3000 recreation
centres have sprung up in the first two years, but
the pace of progress will be accelerated in the current and subsequent years.
The
social educator ought, by the very nature of the responsibilities devolving on
him or her, to be a person with sound education, with a capacity for
organisation and capable of instructing the villagers in the significance of
community activities, by relating them to the responsibilities they have as
members of the particular community concerned and essentially as intelligent
citizens of a free, democratic country. Indirectly, therefore, his or her work
should be so accomplished as to train the rural population for citizenship
responsibilities under a democratic regime.
The
community projects and rural-extension programmes can thus be interpreted as an
instrument for strengthening the democratic foundations of the country via the
path of economic progress. It provides supporting proof for the now familiar
doctrine that democracy can be successful against the attacks of totalitarian
doctrines, only when it is broadbased on the
foundation of economic sufficiency–communal and individual. In India the
self-sufficiency in the rural areas can, in the ultimate analysis, be equated
to self-sufficiency of the nation, because the former constitute so large a
proportion of its territory.
The
future is also interlinked with the production of a balanced rural economy, in
which better farming and profitable agriculture will be coupled with the
provision for small-scale industries for off-season employment of agricultural labour. While community development work provides for the
development of cottage industries and spread of literacy along with
agricultural development, rural extension work, in which agricultural
improvement is the predominant aspect, should gradually be integrated with the
former. Activities in these should be linked simultaneously with the health,
education, social recreation, promotion of co-operative activity, and all the
other aspects of rural welfare. The ideal should be that, in course of time,
the two streams of national extension and the community projects programmes
should intermingle and form a mighty river watering and fertilising
the soil of rural India.