Direct attacks on rural poverty: policy, programmes and implementation

The central question this study asks is what is the scope for, and what are the present limits on, programmes of direct benefit to the rural poor, and how far can these limits be pushed back through appropriate changes in the design of direct attack programmes, and in the institutional framework through which they are implemented? In attempting to throw light on these questions the study draws on the diverse fields of household surveys, labour market analysis, agricultural economics, political analysis, organizational behaviour, and, of course, rural development.

While the study grows out of an intensive study in a small area in eastern Uttar Pradesh of a set of anti-poverty programmes similar to those that later came to be extended nationwide as the Integrated Rural Development Programme and the National Rural Employment Programme (forming between them the main thrust of the poverty alleviation effort) it also draws on experience elsewhere in India, and in other developing countries. Much of the primary data for the study was collected by the author through the methods of action research and participant observation in the study area, where a special state government project was attempting to come up with non-land based activities suited to the resource conditions of the landless.

The study's voluminous detail is arranged so that most of it can be mined at the reader's discretion. The inquiry and its findings are focused throughout on public policy and policy implementation. Although the analysis and conclusions are addressed primarily to the Indian policy community, and to rural development practitioners within the country, they will be of interest and value to students of rural development everywhere, and also to the general reader seeking a comprehensive and up-to-date account of poverty oriented rural develop ment in India.