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Unit 2: Major Segments of Indian Society

investment and in a given time-frame. Thus, the three variables involved are: (a) number of poor Notes
households, (b) resources available for investment, and (c) the time-span over which the investment
would yield an income which would enable the family to cross the poverty line.
The IRDP was launched by the centre in March 1976 in 20 selected districts, but from October 1982
it was extended to all districts in the country. This programme considers a household as the basic
unit of development. The functional aspect of this programme can be gauged from the fact that
above 80 lakh households are said to have been assisted within five years—between 1993-94 and
1997-98—in the matter of improving their economic conditions and rising above the poverty line.
A number of institutions have undertaken studies with respect to the implementation and working
of the IRDP. They point out flaws in the implementation of the programme. None of these studies
have, however, questioned the utility of the programme. The main criticisms against this scheme
are: (1) There are leakages in the programme and all assets created under IRDP are not with the
poor. This is mainly because of three factors: (a) the poor are unable to pay large bribes, fill up
complicated forms, influence the village headman and find ‘guarantors’ for themselves; (b) bank
officials are often reluctant to deal with poor borrowers because they believe—rightly or wrongly—
that giving loans to the poor is risky since recovery is often used as a major indicator of the
performance of a particular branch of a rural bank; and (c) the poor themselves take inadequate
interest in the programme because they are afraid of being cheated or of not being able to repay.
(2) There is much corruption, misuse and malpractice in the implementation of the loan programme.
The loans are often misallocated with little apparent violation of the guidelines of the schemes for
(a) the guidelines make it clear that for fair allocation of loans, Gram Sabha (village assembly)
meetings should be convened for selecting the beneficiaries but in practice this does not happen
because the village headman and the Gram Sevak act as intermediaries between the villagers and
the administration; (b) bribing is a spine qua non of obtaining a loan; and (c) household surveys on
which the list of eligible households are supposed to be based are conducted only once in five
years. (3) The programme is household-based and is not integrated with the development needs
or resource base of the area. Thus, the IRDP loan neither raises the living standards of the
beneficiaries nor does it have any impact on rural poverty by raising the poor people above the
poverty line. This has been indicated by studies in several, districts in Rajasthan, Gujarat, West
Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka. The latest study was conducted in seven districts in Rajasthan
under a World Bank project on poverty. The reports were separately submitted by each district in
April 1997. Similar studies have been planned in three other states also—West Bengal, Andhra
Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.
TRYSEM
The scheme called Training Rural Youth for Self-Employment was started on August 15, 1979 to
provide technical skills to the rural youth to enable them to seek employment in fields of agriculture,
industry, services and business activities. Only youth in the age group of 18-35 and belonging to
families living below the poverty line are eligible for training. Priority for selection is given to
Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribe persons, ex-servicemen and those who are ninth pass. One-
third seats are reserved for women. Stipend to the trainees ranges from Rs. 75 to Rs. 200 per
month. On completion of training, TRYSEM beneficiaries are assisted under the IRDP. In four
years between 1992-93 and 1995-96, about two lakh youths were trained every year, of whom
about 45 per cent became self-employed and 30 per cent remained employed on wages (Economic
and Political Weekly, 1995). The main criticisms against this programme are: (i) its coverage is very
small in relation to need; (ii) skills provided have not been linked with rural industrialisation
process. Training is provided on the basis of ad hoc considerations and skills imparted are of low
level; and (iii) amount of stipend is rather inadequate to motivate the youth to go for training.
NREP
The National Rural Employment Programme (NREP) was planned for creating additional
employment opportunities in the rural areas with the help of surplus foodgrains. Initially, this
programme was called Food for Work Programme (FWP). It was drawn up at the end of 1976-77
but it actually came into effect on April 1, 1977. Under this scheme, millions of mandays of

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