Rural Development and the Role of Gram Panchayats: A Case Study of Dawaguri Gram Panchayat in Cooch Behar District

Abstract

In India majority of the people live in the rural areas with agriculture as their main source of livelihood. Similarly, a sizeable percentage of the population lives below the poverty line. Under these circumstances, it was realized by the Indian policy makers from the beginning that unless efforts are undertaken for the development of the rural areas any serious discussion about national development is bound to be a sterile exercise. In this process, the Gandhian    philosophy about rural India and Gram Swaraj also gave stimulating influence to the makers of the Indian Constitution. Article 40 lays down an important obligation upon the state in relation to the panchayats.  Based on these compulsions of rural development a number of experiments, programs and projects have been undertaken since 1952 with the starting of community development programs. However, it has been found that the success of these programmes related to rural development depends to a significant extent on proper planning, efficient and effective execution, objective evaluation and sincere revision on relevant feedback from the agencies responsible for the task. Practically, agencies of rural development play a vital role in the process of rural development. However, the Panchayati raj system showed that the dream of Gandhiji and his idea of Gram Swaraj were not established through the Balwant Mehta Committee in 1959 or even Askok Mehata Committee in 1978. It is only 73^rd Constitutional Amendment Act, which ought to provide an effective role to the Panchayati Raj Institutions in the planning and implementation of progammes of economic development and social justice in rural India. The present paper seeks to analyse the role of the Gram Panchayats and the practical scenario of the rural development programmes in Cooch Behar district. To measure the performance of the Gram Panchayats in Cooch Behar district, a survey was conducted in a selected gram Panchayat on the basis of random sampling.