Assignment Code: MRD-103/TMA/2022-23

Course Code: MRD-103

Assignment Name: Rural Development – Planning and Management

Year: 2022-2023

Verification Status: Verified by Professor

Note: The assignment has three sections. It contains questions, which require long, medium, and short answers. A long answer should not exceed 1000 words. Medium answers should not exceed 500 words each. Short answers should not exceed 100 words each.

Long Answers Questions Maximum Marks: 40

Attempt any One of the following:

Q1) Explain the various steps required for developing community-based programs.

Ans) Community-based programme planning is crucial. Community organisation planners employ narrow, technical abilities, making it hard for people to engage with them.

1. Talking to the Community: "Entering" the community is the first step in planning a community-based program. When an outside organization "enters" a community, it often makes the people there wonder and be suspicious. So, "entry" into the community needs to be carefully planned.

2. Leaders of the Community: Before deciding how and when to talk to them, the community leaders are found if possible. In general, there are two kinds of leadership in a community: formal and informal. The former is chosen by the community through a formal process. For example, the community chooses the Pradhan of the Gram Panchayat. This can be a teacher, a religious leader, or someone else who is seen as a leader because of their social, religious, or other traits. The community worker has to talk to both kinds of leaders and try to explain why they are meeting and win their trust.

3. Getting the Community Ready: At this point, the community leader, with the help of the community worker, talks to the members about the idea of starting a community-based program. The big goals are talked about, and any questions or worries are answered. All groups are invited so that there will be a lot of acceptance.

4. Diagnose for the Community: Even though problems and needs of the community might come up in community meetings and talks, it is often hard to figure out how big or complicated they are. A properly planned survey made with input from the community and done by a trained person will give a better picture of the problems in the community. Even though this might not be as rigorous as social science research, it would still give a pretty good picture of the facts. This would help find out how the community is doing and figure out what it needs. It would also give local leaders and people a better idea of how things are going and what problems they are facing.

Through a sample survey, the following guidelines can be used to find out what is going on in the community:

1. figure out what the goals of the survey are.

2. find out what the main questions are.

3. Make a simple schedule that fits the needs of the area and the interviewers' skills.

4. tell the leaders what you are trying to do and why you're doing it.

5. Choose interviewers from the local community and give them a short orientation and training on how to collect the information.

We can use the schedule and talk to people who can give you information on some key areas to get the information you need.

1. tabulate the data.

2. put together the report.

3. Find Out What You Need

If the survey results are shared with the community, they can spark a lot of interest, discussion, and activity, which can help figure out what programs are needed. Meetings of the community and casual conversations with people would also help. It's not possible to solve all of the problems at once. At the same time, the question of which need, or needs are the most important comes up. This is because it is best to start a program with an activity that a lot of people care about. So, the process of figuring out how to rank the needs is important. The various steps required for developing community-based programs are:

Getting The Community Aware of The Problems: The community is told about the problems found in a way that they can understand. It can be said out loud or written down. When you give a talk to community leaders, it's a good chance to talk about the biggest problems that came up in the survey and in community meetings.

Setting the Standards: Some ways to figure out which problems need immediate attention and action are to look at how often and how bad they are, who is most affected, how many people are affected, how important the community thinks it is to solve the problem, and what will happen if the problem isn't fixed right away.

Picking Problems to Solve: It's not always possible to work on all the most important problems at the same time. It's also not easy to get everyone on the same page or to agree on something. Most of the time, the problems that are chosen are the ones that most people think are the most important and that can be solved locally with the resources that are already there or that can be brought together. In some situations, the following steps can be taken: The most important people in the community are told about the most important problems and how they were chosen. Making sure the key members are involved is important because it will make making decisions easier and more meaningful and will make them more committed to the program.

People in the community are asked to put the problems in order of how urgent they are, how urgent they are, and how urgent they are not. Priority action can be taken on the problem that most members agree is the most important. Another option is to let the key people talk to each other, make a decision, and then tell the rest of the community. The first method is better for coming to an agreement by talking and debating. In either case, it is important to make sure that powerful interests don't take over and that the interests of the poor and women are protected.

Medium Answers Questions

Attempt any Two of the following:

Q1) Discuss the process of identification and formulation of a project.

Ans) The ideas need to be put to the test to see how useful and realistic they are, like in a community development block. The most important part of the guide is to ask the following questions about the idea:

1. Will the project that the idea suggests fit into block-level planning activities in terms of its size and the order in which it is likely to need investments?

2. Are its technical parts, such as its location, layout, alignment, etc., sound at first glance?

3. Does the block have the actual and potential raw materials and energy it needs to work well?

4. Will there be enough skilled workers, either because they already exist or because there are conditions for them to grow quickly?

5. Are the project's products or services needed locally? Can leftover food be sold to urban centres or surrounding blocks at competitive pricing if there isn't enough demand locally?

6. Are the block's social basic needs not being satisfied by the prospective project?

If the answers to these questions are all "yes," the project idea should be turned into a project blueprint. And if the answer is "no," the project idea should be scrapped or, at best, put on hold until the time is right to try again.

Project Planning: So, after a number of project ideas have been found and tested, each project needs to be spelled out and put together based on a detailed analysis of its techno-economic relationships. Putting together a project usually results in a detailed project report (DPR). At this point, detailed studies will begin so that accurate estimates can be made of how the project might be carried out and how much money it is likely to bring in. For complex projects, it can take a year or two or even longer to make a detailed blueprint. It is also expensive, costing anywhere from 7% to 10% of the total project investment. Formulation or preparation is all the work that needs to be done to get the project to the point where it can be carefully reviewed and evaluated and, if chosen, put into action. Feasibility studies start project planning. This initial phase helps you evaluate if you require a lot of ahead planning. The feasibility assessment should let you adapt the idea to its social and physical surroundings. This should maximise the project's return. We'll discuss feasibility analysis in future modules.

Step One: Block plan's goals will have to be matched to the block's physical and social conditions (Step One). Since every plan for a project has a time limit, you must first make an inventory of all the resources in the base year. The chart that comes with this article will show you how to take actions at the block level.

What's Next: The next step is to decide on activities, general facilities, costs, and payment methods. This stage also organises and manages. However, the project's focus would determine the activities. Thus, a possible outline:

1. The Description of the Project

2. Component Details: Works and Common Spaces

3. Project Phases

4. Cost Estimates

5. Financing

6. Organization and Management

7. Production, Markets, and Financial Expectations

8. Reasons and Benefits

9. Outstanding Issues

10. Annexure

Q2) Describe in brief, the nature of strategies adopted for social action.

Ans) Social action strategies vary. Strategy determines tactics. Organizing social action movements requires multiple steps. Consider these points.

Gabriel Britto identified Gandhian mobilisation techniques. These:

1. Credibility-Building: This involves promoting the leadership, sponsors, and participants' social values.

2. Legitimization: Promoting the movement's goals as morally right, making the action socially and morally acceptable.

3. Dramatization: Mobilizing the population through emotional appeals, soul-stirring speeches, media management, novel methods of drawing support, catchy slogans, processions, protest marches, and other methods.

4. Multiple Strategies: Advocacy, education, persuasion, facilitating actions, pressure tactics, etc.

5. Dual approach: building a counter system or reviving a declining but beneficial system. A constructive counteraction plan opposes an unjust, exploitative, or undesirable system.

6. Manifold Program: Develop social, economic, and political programs to mobilize masses for social and economic reconstruction and political independence.

Desai divided social worker strategies into three categories:

1. Cooperative: Powerholders change without confrontation. Change can happen because “the intended change is either the lesser of the two evils or they have themselves identified the factors which affect the very existence of the institution or the achievement of its goals; they are disenchanted, or dissatisfied and therefore willing to engage in the change effort though some part of the system may show initial resistance”.

2. Bargaining, Negotiating, and Advocacy: Resistance demands light pressure. Desai says, “These could involve negotiating and negotiation, publicity which produces discomfort for the target of change, campaigning through the media and attempts to isolate the target group from the beliefs of the community at large. Satyagraha, Morcha, and other tactics can sway public opinion.

3. Controversial: Due to fundamental disagreements, demonstrations, civil disobedience, and direct action are used. Social work's pedagogical concept forbids Desai from mentioning techniques like annihilation, elimination, defeat, or subjection.

Lees categorizes social action strategies similarly. He categorizes:

1. Collaboration: Lees advises it when “there is basic consensus regarding the manner an issue should be resolved or the prospect of obtaining such agreement once the subject is fully considered”.

2. Competition: This applies when there is "conflict" over interests, but parties can agree on how to promote their views. Lees says this implies goal conflict but means agreement.

3. Disruption: ""Peaceful demonstration to revolutionary upheavals" are choices when consensus is unknown. Any plan can fail. They don't indicate a peaceful-to-disruptive transition. Conflict replaces failed models. One model uses other models' approaches carefully.

4. Tactics: Social action uses a variety of tactics, often in combination, depending on the sponsors' philosophy and ideology, the other party's tactics, and the situation's dynamics.

Short Answers Questions

Attempt any Five of the following:

Q1) Future Economic Value

Ans) Benefit rupees depreciate over time. Cost also detracts. Everyone—individuals, institutions, and society—prioritizes the now over the future. The discount rate lets us turn the future time sequence of project expenses, benefits, and their components—private, public, or social—into a present value series. The discount rate currently dominates project appraisal. Thus, choose the discount rate. Public project agency, private individual, household, and company borrowing and lending rates can substitute private and public discount rates. For instance, a state government or public sector entity borrows investment funds from NABARD and lends a part to rural households.

Q2) Formulative and Summative Evaluation

Ans) Formative evaluation focuses on project creation. It helps planners identify future issues, project improvements, etc. The goal is to improve planning design to boost project benefits or delivery system efficiency. Summative evaluation selects initiatives for continuation or termination. Summative evaluation may propose project cancellation, making it final. It summarises the project's success, including targets met, unexpected outcomes, and comparisons to other projects.

Q3) Cash Flow Statement

Ans) Cashflow statements show project performance. Important characteristic. The cash account is the best indicator of a project's viability. Due to the loan funds and commercial deal, the project would have at least two cash accounts. The first could be for a government organisation, and the second for a typical or representative individual family. The two agencies' accounts will show the project's financial viability. A cash flow statement shows the project's annual income and expenditures. This statement predicts how much money the agency will receive and spend each year of the project.

Q4) State Planning Department

Ans) The State Planning Department is a government agency that is in charge of making plans and policies for the growth of a state or region and putting them into action. Its main goal is to promote economic, social, and territorial growth by coordinating and guiding the implementation of regional development programs and policies. Some of the department's most important jobs are to make and update long-term development plans, find and rank development needs and opportunities, coordinate and guide the implementation of development programs and projects, and keep track of and evaluate the progress of these programs and projects.

Q5) Objectives of CAPART

Ans) The Planning Commission examines a Five Year Plan midway. 1987–1989 was the Planning Commission's Seventh Five Year Plan 1985–1990. This session evaluates the Five Year Plan and brainstorms ways to improve it for the rest of the plan and possibly the next. Planning Commission subject divisions evaluated sectors for the Seventh Plan's midterm assessment. The Planning Commission discussed progress, challenges, and next steps with relevant Ministries. The Deputy Chairman reviewed an appraisal based on Planning Commission discussions. The Planning Commission gave the document to the NDC.