Local Level Planning and Rural Development Alternative Strategies

An International Experts Group Meeting on Decentralised Planning was held at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie, from 11th to 13th June 1990. The book a revised version of the papers read at the Conference the proceedings and its recommendations. The sweep of the papers cover everything relevant currently for district planning the concepts, the resources, the database, the role of the administrator, the training needs, people's participation, agro-climatic zones and the know how to frame a district plan. Each paper is by an acknowledged expert in his respective field with long years of experience at micro-planning, both academically and as a practical planner. The proceedings and the recommendations are particularly important because they are harbingers of hope and give a view of the probable shape of things as they might emerge in the foreseeable years ahead of us. The book would be of immense interest to administrators planners, academicians and students of decentralised planning.

About the Author :
The contributors are at home in the world of planning for rural development. This work should make an enlightening reading experience for the general reader and the specialist and a meaty account for students of rural development. "Concerned with alternative development strategies and local level planning, the papers have sought to highlight different aspects of rural development and local level planning in the light of experience and the programmes pursued ... On counts of facts presented, analysis of different issues involved and lacunae that still loom large, the volume commends itself for wide readership in this country." "Among the first attempts to explore the nature and implications of local level planning and development with focus on people's effective participation in decisionmaking and equitable sharing in the benefits of development... In view of the current worldwide interest in participatory planning and development at the local level, the book is timely." "The alternative development strategies presented in seven scholarly and exhaustive papers in the first part of the book reveal unmistakably the disenchantment bf the experts with past experience in planning and development in many countries. To provide an empirical perspective to the doctrinaire approach an account of local level planning in some countries notably (India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Nepal) of the ESCAP region is given in the second part of the book. India has already resorted to block level planning. All the same, grassroots planning is still a far cry in our country for which the book has many useful and stimulating suggestions."