Community Development

India is a country of villages. The Indian economy is still predominantly agricultural. About half of the country’s national income is derived from agriculture and allied activities, which absorb nearly three-fourths of its working population. The condition of the people in the villages, in general, is of poverty, mal-nutrition, poor standard of public health, and illiteracy. Since independence the aim of the national government has been to accelerate the pace of industrial development, increase agricultural productivity and achieve all round progress through national plans. In these plans Community Development has been given a very important place in the development of villages. The main objective of Community Development is to develop village communities by methods, which will stimulate, encourage and aid villagers themselves to do much of the work necessary to accomplish the desired goal. A number of programmes of development like building of dams and steel plants do not require the participation of the people who are actually working on such projects in any way other than as wage earners. But this is not the case with the community development programmes, for they require not only the sanction of the people but their participation. The changes conceived and promoted should have the involvement of the people and should be acceptable to them and put into practice by them. This book is not a definitive study of the problems of social change in rural India. The training programme brought together in this volume, presents different types of problems and the role of the rural people in the problem solving process at the community level. It has been shown in various case studies how at various stages the rural people may play a crucial role in turning or otherwise discouraging situation into one of promise. The real achievement of the rural people lies not so much in the fact the project such as the school building, lane pavement, community centre, or construction of well of accomplished but in bringing together badly divided and faction-ridden village communities to join in a co-operative venture. The present volume consists of ten chapters. The first, second and third chapters are devoted to theory and definition with historical background of the community development. Fourth to sixth chapters are related with preparation and training programme of project. In the seventh and eight chapters authors have explained about the implementation and evaluation on project. The conclusion of the book has summarized in the last chapter in the form of suggestions for upcoming of Community Development in the context of village of country as called India.