Page 45 - DSOC201_SOCIAL_STRUCTURE_AND_SOCIAL_CHANGE_ENGLISH

Social Structure and Social Change

Notes 1999: 18-19). It is estimated that using high-yield techniques, the upper 10 per cent of land-holders
could produce enough food to feed urban and other non-agricultural population of India. This
means that about 48 million cultivators’ families would be pushed off the land. This is a wrong
assumption. Commercialisation of agriculture and the green revolution of last three decades would
neither affect the cultivators adversely nor spell the demise of patronage system in the villages.
Planned Rural Development
Two types of policies affect rural life: (i) production-oriented activities targeting production and
services, e.g., subsidised fertilisers, providing irrigation, credit, locating village industries, and so
on; and (ii) non-production oriented activities targeting living standards. The first type of activities
are defined as rural development measures. These activities may affect either the whole community
or a particular section of the community. Examples of the former type of activities are: community
development projects (1952), Panchayati Raj (1962), land reforms (1950s), poverty alleviation
programmes (PAPs) like Integrated Rural Development Programme (1978) etc., while of the latter
type of activities are Tribal Development Programme (1959), Drought-prone Area Programme
(1979), Desert Development Programme (1977), Food for Work Programme (1977), National Rural
Employment Programme (1980), TRYCEM, etc. (Sagar, 1990:251-261). Some programmes aimed at
increasing assets (including increasing production) and benefitting people economically, e.g., IRDP,
Minimum Agricultural Wage, Rural Employment Programme, etc., while others aimed at social
uplift of people, e.g., zamindari abolition, land reforms, Panchayati Raj, TRYSEM, etc. Some
programmes indeed aimed at poverty alleviation (e.g., self-employment programmes of NREP,
DPAP, training programme of TRYSEM, etc.) while some others were politically motivated, e.g.,
Garibi Hatao and 20-point programme. However, the basic aims of achieving community
participation, removal of social evils, and improving the quality of life have yet to be achieved.
The Strategies
Three distinct strategies for rural development may be identified:
1. Initially, in the 1950s, policy-makers stressed maximisation of economic growth by stepping up
investment assuming that the benefits arising out of it would ‘trickle down’ and diffuse among
all sectors of the rural society. But in the 1970s, it was realised that the benefits of agricultural
growth did not percolate to the rural poor.
2. This gave birth to the second approach led by structural school which suggested distribution of
assets through land reforms, community development programmes and cooperative farming.
But this also did not work.
3. Then came the idea in the 1980s that suggested attack on poverty through rural development
programmes, such as IRDP, TRYSEM, NREP, and RLEGP which later on merged in JRY
programme. Before analysing these anti-poverty progranmmes, we shall evaluate the role of
Five Year Plans, and 20-Point Programme in poverty alleviation.
The Five Year Plans
The Planning Commission set up in 1950 has been formulating Five Year Plans for India’s
development taking an overall view of the needs and resources of the country. The First Plan was
launched in April 1951 and the Third Plan ended in March 1966. After this, there were three one
year plans from April, 1966 to March 1969. The Fourth Plan started in April 1969 and the Ninth
Plan started in April 1997 (though it got cabinet approval only in January 1999).
The First Five Year Plan (1951-56) aimed at achieving an all-round balanced development and
accorded top priority to agriculture and irrigation investing 44.6 per cent of the total plan budget
in this sector. This was to reduce the country’s dependence on agricultural imports and save
foreign exchange. However, the plan did give importance to the development of social welfare
programmes. At the end of the plan, the country’s national income increased by 18 per cent and
per capita income by 11 per cent.
The Second Five Year Plan (1956-61) strongly felt that the benefits of development should accrue
more to the relatively underprivileged sections of society and that there should be a progressive

40 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY