"Grass without roots: Rural development under government auspices / by L.C. Jain , B.V. Krishnamurthy and P.M.Tripathi"

This book is the first comprehensive and critical review of the various rural development schemes initiated by the government of India since independence. It : traces successive policy shifts, organisational changes and programme innovations, as also considers the impact of . all this activity at the grass-roots level through field studies conducted in selected rural development blocks in the country.
The planning, direction and implementation of rural development programmes have been concentrated in government hands. The people have no part in this process, participating neither in policy formulation nor in implementation. It is therefore not surprising, the authors argue, that despite the plethora of schemes and the vast amounts of public money that have been expended on
them, India's efforts at rural development have failed to generate a development process. The rural landscape may bear a
look of developmental activity but this is a surface phenomenon without any roots. The authors conclude from their
detailed field observations that there is a complete mismatch between ideas and the institutions created to translate the
former into practice. While there are frequent shifts in official policy and direction, the government's rural development efforts have largely remained barren because they have not been able to spark off local initiative or produce a multiplier effect.