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Evolution of Special Programmes

There are, as we mentioned, several programmes  for the rural poor and unemployed. There are also programmes which are aimed at ecologically backward areas. But these programmes were not in existence right from the time that India became independent. How did they evolve? What policy or philosophy did they spring from? These are some of the questions we will consider in this section. 

Types of Programmes 

Various types of economic and social programmes can be identified. There are purely social programmes, which are 'consumption' oriented in that they do not seek to help or enhance production. An example is the Integrated Child Development Services Scheme (ICDS). Also in this category would be included various health programmes, immunisation programmes and nutrition programmes. 

Another type or set of programmes has to do with increasing production. These programmes seek to make the land, the labourers and farmers more productive. Irrigation programmes would be of this type. So would the Integrated Areas Development Programme (IADP) launched in the early 1960s to improve productivity  in agriculture. It was a precursor of the Green Revolution, introduced in the mid-1960s on a much wider scale and included a package of inputs consisting of high yielding variety of seeds, nitrogenous fertilizers, more intensive use of water, and so on. 

A third set of programmes can be called institution oriented programmes. These programmes seek to bring about changes and improvements in overall institutional patterns and arrangements. Community Development Programme and the Panchayati Raj arrangements are examples of this type of programmes. Land reform seeking to bring about, among other things, changes in-the ownership pattern of land could also be considered as an example of this type of programme. 

Sometimes some programme cannot be categorized as one type or the other. For example, we would normally think of a nutrition programme as a 'consumption' type of programme. But insofar as adequate nutrition helps to increase productivity of labour, nutrition programmes can also be considered as a 'production'  type of programme. Similarly, land reforms, an institutional programme, can help in improving overall productivity of land and hence could be considered a production type programme. 

The kind of programmes that we would be considering in this unit broadly  fall in the category of consumption programmes insofar as they help to raise the nutritional status and consumption, education and health levels. But primarily they are production type programmes as they seek to provide assets and employment, increase productivity and generate income. The area based programmes that we consider seek to increase productivity of ecologically disadvantaged land areas. 

The Pre-Income-Generation Programme Period 

Immediately after Independence, there was no income generation programme. The existing programmes were mainly in the nature of food and irrigation programmes designed more to increase production than to alleviate poverty and generate employment as such. In the 1950s, in the first Five Year Plan, two important things were done. One was the incorporation into the plan of the earlier Grow More Food Campaign which had its origin in the efforts to increase food production during the second world war. The other was the initiation of a major institutional programme called the Community Development Programme in 1952. This had as its precursors some earlier efforts at rural development programme  projects like the Sriniketan Project of Tagore or the Marthandam  Project started by Spencer Hatch. In the second Five Year Plan another important institutional programme was started. This was the Panchayati Raj institution. The Community Development Programme and the Panchayati  Raj Programme were not directly designed to raise the consumption and production levels. There was the National Extension Sewices started in 1953, which sought to provide an integrated package of information, knowledge, seeds, credit and so on, to the farmers so that primarily the benefits of research in agriculture could be passed on to the farmers. It was a 'lab-to-land'  programme. This programme was a production-type programme. But again there was no direct effort at increasing consumption and directly generating income. That was to come later. 

The main effort at reducing inequalities in the rural areas was articulated through land reforms which sought to bring about changes in the ownership of patterns of land and to provide security of tenure, among other things. But there was, till then, no other direct attempt to focus on poverty or rural unemployment or even in redistribution of land. 

At the beginning of the planning process a variety of possibilities regarding growth and redistribution were considered. There could be redistribution before growth; there could be growth with redistribution; and there could be growth before redistribution. It was the last which was opted for. It was felt that in a poor country there was only poverty to  redistribute. Before the 'cake' could be recawed into various sizes and portions, the size of the cake itself had to grow. There was an urgent need for the economy of the country as a whole to grow, it was felt, rather than try to redistribute existing incomes. 

This strategy was articulated in the strategies of the first two plans, particularly  the second Five Year Plan. This plan focused on heavy industry. Moreover, the Government was envisaged to play a leading role and control or regulate important sectors of the economy like infrastructure. 

A major assumption of this thinking was that the benefits of growth would automatically reach even the poorest sections of the population. It was felt that once the country as a whole grew, everybody would reap the benefits of growth. This was not to be. 

The first cracks in the strategy appeared in the 1960s. In 1963-64 and 1964-65 two successive droughts occurred. This led to fall in production of food grains. Heavy imports had to be resorted to. On the industrial side, it was evident that the industrial strategy had led to increased concentration of economic power, to inefficiencies in production, and to a slowdown in investment by the Government. 

The shortfall in agriculture led to the adoption of the Green Revolution strategy in 1966-67. The Green Revolution, as we mentioned earlier, was a production oriented strategy. By the turn of the decade, however, certain factors and circumstances led to a change in thinking in official circles and the initiation of income generation and employment. 

Change in Thinking and Genesis of the Income Generation Programmes 

By the late 1960s it was clear that the benefits of even the Green Revolution had not percolated to all in the villages. Although the Green Revolution had helped to make the country self-sufficient in food grains there were still poor peasants who were net buyers of food grains. The Green Revolution also did not have a significant effect on employment generation. Mechanisation did not come down in the farms. 

In the early 1970s and indeed, since the late 1960s, there were attempts at statistical estimation of the magnitude of poverty, about determination of a suitable poverty line, and the trend in rural poverty. Although the various estimates differed in details, they all underscored the point that a significant number of the rural populace was below any suitably defined poverty line. Most experts regarded  that the poverty line should be defined in view of an adequate minimum level of nutrition by an individual or family and the expenditure thereon. These measurement attempts  were indicative of the emerging general concern regarding poverty. 

Another source of the change in thinking that took place around the same time was the change that was occurring in the discipline of Development Economics and Development Studies. Three points were stressed. First, instead of simply focusing on the relative backwardness of developing countries or a developing country like India compared to advanced countries like America and Britain, what was needed, it was felt, was to focus on inequality and poverty within a developing country like India. Second, a distinction was sought to be made between growth and development-the  former focusing exclusively on GNP and its size, while the latter was seen as growth plus change: a change in attitudes, in institutions, in income distribution and standard of living. The third was including non-economic indicators like health, education, mortality and so on as indicators of development as well as laying stress on certain basic and minimum needs required by everyone. The last entailed stressing a minimum standard of  living and an absolute level of poverty. 


These thoughts found their echoes in India, as in several developing countries. In the following section we discuss in turn, minimum needs programme, anti-poverty programmes, employment generation programmes, and area based programmes. All these, except perhaps the minimum needs programme, seek directly or indirectly to generate income for the people. Our stress throughout will be on rural areas. 

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