Organisation and Working of District Rural Development Agency:A Case Study

Rural development is advocated as a basic strategy for economic development in India. Many rural development programmes have been launched both by the Central and State governments which aimed at improving the condition of the poor people. The governments' policies and programmes have laid emphasis not only on poverty alleviation, but also on generation of employment and income opportunities, provision of infrastructure and basic facilities to meet the needs of the rural poor. To administer the Rural Development Programmes effectively a new administrative set-up, namely, District Rural Development Agency (DRDA), was set up by merging the SFDA and MFAL in 1980. An effort has been made in this article to understand the process of functioning of a DRDA in the implementation of rural development programmes.