To accelerate the process of economic development and social change, The Community Development Programme was launched in the country in 1952 which was in course of time integrated with the Panchayat Raj institutions. But economic and political benefits were grabbed by the rich farmers and upper strata of village communities. The C.D.P. however did help in establishing an administrative machinery at the grass-root levels and also in creating infrastructural facilities throughout the country. The IRDP which is the single largest anti-poverty programme was first launched in 1978-79. It aims at providing income generating assets and employment opportunities to the rural poor for eventually enabling them to rise above the poverty line once and forever. This provides direction in which the process of rural development and the major poverty alleviation programmes have been heading towards the redistribution of income. All the issues pertaining to rural development have been thoroughly discussed to see if the rural development policies that we have been pursuing for the last four and a half decades need further rethinking and reformulation and whether the organizational structures that we have erected in rural India need further revitalization. Further it has also been examined whether the role of the voluntary agencies operating in the field needs further clarification. Strengthening of Panchayati Raj institutions, adequacy of the existing network of communications of meet the need of the challenge of development, destruction of our eco-system in the name of rural development; and finally, proper care of weaker sections of society in rural India by implementing the various poverty alleviation programmes are some of the vital issues which have been discussed in this volume.
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