Attainable Rural Development

This book, "Attainable Rural Development’ is based on the field work undertaken by Prof. Dr. Mumtaz Ali Khan in ten villages of Devanahally Taluk which is located 30 miles away from Bangalore City. The author has introduced three stages of intervention. First stage reflects on the ground realities of the people and the places. The book points out very poor implementation of programmes of the state, particularly for the development of Dalits, backward classes and minorities. When once the bottle necks were identified, the author started preparing projects appropriate to the areas of deficiencies and submitted to various funding agencies. With the assistance from Christian Children’s Fund, he started implementation of the programmes. Then he also took financial assistance from Canadian High Commission in India, Netherlands Embassy, South Asia Partnership, Canadian International Development Agency and Water Aid London. The book throws light on the methods of approaches such as consultation with the people at every stage of implementation, their involvement through discussions and demonstration. Women, children and community were all the beneficiaries. A few cases of blind faith in maintaining cows and consequence losses are highlighted. The concept of ‘Pressure-group’ as propagated and demonstrated by the Nobel Peace Awardee, Prof. Mohammed Yunus was experimented by the author of this book. Social concerns like co-operation and sharing in distress, live and let live are presented.  The roles of the government vis-a-vis NGO demonstrate the failure of the government officials as against the success of the NGO. The failure is mostly due to indifference, corrupt practices, lack of monitoring and evaluation. A few important recommendations are offered for the benefit of all agencies interested in people’s co-operation in rural development.