ABSTRACT
A.P. District Planning Committees Act, 2005 – Preparation of District Plans by the District Planning Committee – Guidelines - Orders – Issued.
PANCHAYAT RAJ AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT (ELECTIONS & RULES) DEPARTMENT
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The 74th Constitutional Amendment Act provides for the constitution of District Planning Committees with a view to perform the critical role of defining the goals of development in each sector and outlining the strategy to be followed for each sector based on local needs and prepare a Draft District Development Plan.
As such the District Planning Committee (DPC) constituted under A.P. DPC Act 2005 should essentially act as an umbrella organisation in the district, to prepare a draft comprehensive development plan of the district duly integrating the plan of the Panchayat Raj Institutions and Municipalities.
The road map of 11th Five Year Plan (2007-2012) is to achieve Socio-economic targets with an objective to attain double digit growth. It lays emphasis on crucial sectors like Agriculture, Education, Health, Employment, Clean drinking water, Better civic amenities and improve quality of life.
Keeping in view the objectives of the 11th Five Year Plan the DPC shall determine a strategy for Draft Development Plan of the District, taking in to account the needs, problems and the resource potential.
The planning exercise ought to lead to a five-year plan for the period corresponding with the national plan period, and annual plans that define and priorities areas and schemes from such a plan. The longer term plans would capture the overall picture of the Panchayats / Urban Local Bodies and allow people to understand what planning and Governmental funding could hold out for them. The developmental plans are nothing but schemes and projects listed in priority, and matching the available resources to implement them.
The following guidelines are issued for evolving development strategy and preparing Draft District Development Plan by the District Planning Committee:
- Identify the needs, problems, resource potential and linkages in the district for the formulation of the development plans.
- Identify the common interest between Panchayat and Municipalities like Basic Minimum Services and other Infrastructure needs.
- Identify different levels of focal points for locating services and facilities required in the district.
- Identify priorities for development of the district, in order to ensure maximum and judicious utilisation and exploitation of available natural and human resources.
The objective of district planning is to arrive at an integrated, participatory coordinated idea of development of local area. An essential step in this direction is to ensure that each Rural or Urban body is treated as a planning unit and the ‘district plan’ is built up through consolidation and integration of these plans. While preparing District Plan District Planning Committee shall aim of the following.
- Ensure optimum utilisation of local resources.
- Provide a desirable and affordable quality of life to the people.
- Generate gainful employment opportunities.
- Meeting infrastructure requirement.
- Flow of economic inputs through banks, co-operatives, agro and allied activities.
- Correcting the Rural-Urban disparities and imbalance and help in achievement of a desirable level of Rural-Urban continuum.
- Provide opportunities for involvement of local people and local skill.
- Agriculture including agricultural extension
- Animal Husbandry, dairying and poultry
- Fisheries
- Drinking Water
- Poverty alleviation programme
- Education, including primary and secondary schools
- Health including hospitals, primary health centers and dispensaries
- Women and Child development
- Welfare of the weaker sections and in particular of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes including Handicapped
- Communication – Roads and Bridges
- Sanitation including Drainage
- Solid Waste Management
The process of preparing Draft District Development Plans falls into three broad sequence of steps.
- Building a vision
- Stock taking exercise
- Consolidation and integration
To begin the planning, the District Planning Committee, shall gather data on the present state of development and resource endowment on each of the following areas. The assistance of concerned line departments including planning department, National Informatics Centre, and other statistical organisation may be obtained to build the requisite data
- Demography profile
- Educational attainment
- Health attainment
- Income and poverty indicators
- Infrastructure and other facilities
- Agriculture and allied sectors
- Industry including Traditional and Small
Based on data a vision document shall be prepared by the District Planning Committee for Panchayat Raj Institutions and Urban Local Bodies, through a participatory process, as to what would be the perspective for development over the next 10 to 15 years. The articulation of a vision is best done stating with respect to each sector what the needs and potential are, what the attainable levels are and what the goals to be reached could be. A basic requirement is that the preparation of the vision is not conditioned by schemes and programmes. The vision would be primarily articulated in terms of goals and outcomes.
The District Planning Committee may hold formal interaction with the elected representatives and officials of line department and other stakeholders in finalising the vision document.
The vision should cover the following three sectors.
- Human resource development
- Infrastructure development
- Development in productive sector
Building a vision for basic human development indicators would essentially cover Health, Education, Sanitation Women and child welfare, Welfare of SCs/STs, and Welfare of Physically & Mentally challenged. Districts that are below the national average in any of the development indicator the first step would be to reach the average level and the next would be to attain the desirable level. Envisioning shall also be undertaken in respect of attainments regarding education, health, water supply and sanitation etc.
With respect to the vision for infrastructure, the targets aimed under Bharat Nirman could be adopted in the manner as applicable for each district. The Component of Bharat Nirman are Irrigation, Rural roads, Rural Housing, Rural Water Supply, Rural Electrification and Rural connectivity.
The vision for the productive sector would consider what is the potential of the district and what can be reached within the plan period, considering the natural and human resources available in the district. There ought to be a close look at all aspects of natural resources use such as food and agricultural production, land and its improvement, irrigation and attainment of water security, Agriculture and allied sectors viz., Animal Husbandry, Dairy, Poultry and Fisheries etc.
It is desirable that each District is treated as “Economic Unit” for planning exercise. The scope of vision document could be expanded to include areas of comparative advantage of each district viz., Availability of Major Irrigation Projects, Special Economic Zone, Tourism, Agro-Industry, Handlooms and Handicrafts etc., which could be the basis for establishing Rural Businesscenters.
Along with the envisioning process, a stock-taking exercise would need to be undertaken, comprising an assessment of the availability of natural, social and financial resources and infrastructure. For doing this, data pertaining to these aspects of development need to be collected and compiled.
- Determination of cumulative physical and financial achievement under each scheme with reference to the data available with implementing officers.
- Verification of physical assets, both community and individual assets.
- Determination of works spilling over from the earlier plan and the funds required for the completion of the same.
District Planning is the process of preparing an integrated plan for the local government sector in a district taking into account the resources available and covering the sectoral activities and schemes assigned to the district level and below and those implemented by local governments. The document that embodies this statement of resources and their allocation for various purposes is known as the District Plan. It would essentially have three aspects namely:
- Plan to be prepared by the Rural Local Bodies for the activities assigned to them and the national/state schemes implemented by them with their own resources and those earmarked for these purposes;
- Plan to be prepared by the Urban Local Bodies for the activities assigned to them and the national/state schemes implemented by them with their own resources and those earmarked for these purposes;
- Physical integration of the plans of Rural and Urban Local Bodies with the elements of the State Plan that are physically implemented within the geographical confines of the district.
This would mean integration of schemes such as roads that run through one or more Panchayats. Such kinds of Multi Panchayat infrastructure projects could be taken up with proportionate contributions from the Panchayats concerned dovetailed into the funding available from above and entrusted to one local government for execution.
This relates to the integration that takes place within a sector. For instance, an integrated approach to agricultural development would require the integration of several schemes relating to agriculture, such as horticulture, drip irrigation, high yielding varieties and integrated pest management.
To ensure maximum impact from different interventions, it is necessary to design approaches that draw resources from various schemes. For instance, a good approach to public health would require inputs from water and sanitation allocations and health programme allocations. Again, a typical watershed management programme would comprise of soil conservation, water harvesting, micro irrigation, bio-mass generation, fisheries, animal husbandry, agro processing and micro enterprise components, all properly sequenced.
This is based on the precept that the Zilla Praja Parishads and Mandal Praja Parishads ought to perform activities which have the advantages of scale and which cannot be done by the lower tiers. This will require that the Mandal Praja Parishads have a clear idea as to what the draft plans of Gram Panchayats will contain. Similarly the Zilla Praja Parishads would need to consider the approved plans of Mandal Praja Parishads and Gram Panchayats before finalizing theirs.
There are several schemes both Centrally sponsored and State sponsored which Panchayats can utilize, integrate into local plans and to which they can contribute additional resources from their own funds. The Local Bodies can also formulate schemes from out of their own resources. Thus the Local Body component of the District Plan would emerge out of the resources envelop containing the following
- Estimated collection of own tax and non-tax revenues
- Estimated contribution by the communities themselves. (Other than through Panchayat taxes etc.)
- Any other own source (Assigned revenues)
- State Finance Commission Grants.
- Twelfth Finance Commission Grants.
- Any other Untied grants (Percapita, Seigniorege fee)
- Grants for State Plan schemes.
- Grants in respect of Centrally Sponsored Schemes.
- Grants for Externally supported schemes.
The integration of resources would comprise of three aspects, as shown below:
There are several State Plans, which as implemented can be strengthened by increased allocation from Panchayat funds. In some cases a component having a complementary nature could be added to the State Plan Scheme.
It is important that in the interest of efficient use of resources, there ought to be only one development plan for the local government prepared through a common planning process and not a set of separate plans prepared in accordance with the guidelines of each programme. Thus once priorities and works are identified and prioritized through a single planning process, components pertaining to a particular sector could be taken up through schemes, including CSSs while still keeping within the guidelines of those schemes.
Planning can provide for local investments to be catalysed through local resources or initiatives. For example, Rural business Hubs could be catalysed by Panchayats. This is also possible by extending the concept of “Pura” to encompass the concept of rural business hubs. The Panchayat Raj Institutions shall catalog local skills and natural resource endowments and facilitate the development of business linkages.
Integration of urban-rural plans, which is particularly important in the light of increasing urbanization, is an area where the District Planning Committee could contribute a great deal. The DPC should work out mechanism of joint programmes to be financed by State government institutions and joint contributions by urban and rural local bodies.
In the preparation of District Plans, priority should be given first, to plans for the provision of basic minimum needs, second, to the provision of services, third, to facilitating Rural Business Hubs and fourth, to generate economic development.
Special attention has to be given to women and disadvantaged groups so as to enable them to take a lead in planning. The current means for inclusion of women in development planning and implementation as well as in allocation of funds is to offer a special women’s component plan to ensure that part of sectoral funding is available and used for women.
In ensuring meaningful participation of traditionally muted and excluded groups like SCs/STs and women in the envisioning exercise, there is need for special capacity building for them. Networks of elected women members ought to be encouraged so that they can exert collective pressure as well as throw up leadership for a meaningful development of village and district plans with womens’ view embedded in them.
The District Planning Committee shall also prepare sub-plans for SCs/STs.
- These Sub-plans should show scheme-wise allocation for SC/ST in proportion to their population
- Amenities such as Schools, Health Centres & Anganwadies should be provided on priority in villages having more SCs/STs population
For completing various phases of planning process, a sequence of steps have to be followed right from the preparation of District Vision to bringing out District Plan. The District Planning Committee shall adhere to the schedule. The sequence of preparation of plans is as follows
- Constituting Sectoral Sub-Committees for preparation of perspective plan
- Formulation of District Vision
- Holding District Level and Mandal level workshops to discuss District Vision
- Forwarding of District Vision and the guidelines to the Local Bodies
- Meetings of Local Bodies to discuss the guidelines and constituting working rules.
- Formulation of Local Body Vision
- Conducting of Grama Sabhas
- Preparation of perspective plans by working groups of Local Bodies
- Finalisation of the Local Body Plans
- Submission of Local Body Plans to District Planning Committee
- Discussion by the DPC with the representatives of Local Bodies to finalise the District Plan
- Bringing out development perspective of the district and preparation of Draft District Development Plan
After integrating the local body plan the District Planning Committee has to prepare sector wise out lays in the proforma given in Annexure, for Rural Local Bodies and Urban Local Bodies separately.
Executive Summary :
Each district plan should contain an executive summary
Chapter-1
Background, including Resource Inventory :-
This Chapter should include the following information :
- Location of Area, year of constitution and particularly in terms of access to capital city and other large consumption centers
- Basic data on population, density and socio-economic indicators compared with State and national averages. Separate data should be given for SC/ST population
- Data on PRIs and ULBs, including abstract composition of elected representatives, powers, functions and functionaries at their command.
- Details of natural resources, such as Rainfall, forests, minerals, water and soil resources.
- Human Resources, such as population in the working age group, level of unemployment, skills available, situation regarding Self Help Groups
- Infrastructure, such as roads, railways, telecommunication, irrigation, credit facilities, hospitals and health centers, schools and colleges
- Institutions including vocational training institutes, research institutions ICAR institutions, polytechnics, Engineering Colleges etc. including recent initiatives and notable developments during the last three years.
- Income and expenditure details for the last five years
- Special economic activities, if any
- Strategic vision regarding Listing of historical legacies, traditions and customs causing backwardness or impediments to developments.
- Identification of geographical areas requiring specific attention
- Identification of communities and groups that need specific interventions
- Abstract of benchmark studies
Sector-wise details including status of development of each sector and flow of funds to various Schemes in the last three years.
Vision Chapter, identifying priorities and summary of objectives and outcomes to be achieved in five years.
Abstract of Panchayat-wise / Municipal-wise development plans addressing the priorities.
| Name of the Sector | Total provision | Method of Finance | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| (a) Panchayat /Mpl. funds | ( b) Govt. grants | (c) CSS | (d) EAP | (e) Others | ||
Monitoring and evaluation is crucial to learn lesson about the design and implementation of programmes which can help increase their effectiveness. Traditionally, plan monitoring has been done by tracking expenditure levels achieved in relation to outlays. While this is an important measure of the pace of implementation, it is not a measure of effectiveness. For that, it is necessary to go from outlays and expenditures to final outcomes.
In the case of education for example, starting from expenditures as a first step, one can track intermediate outcomes such as the construction of school facilities, the filling of vacancies and training of teachers, success in enrollment and reductions in drop out rates but the final outcome is really the quality of education provided. All the intermediate steps are relevant and also well worth monitoring, but the ultimate test of the strategy must be defined in terms of final outcomes. Often this can only be determined over a period of time.
In the case of health where improvements in health status are often the result not of interventions in the area of curative health but in the provision of clean drinking water and sanitation.
Besides regular monitoring by the concerned Local Bodies the District Planning Committee may also consider the need for professional and systematic evaluation of programmes by independent out side agencies.
The G.O is available on Internet and can be accessed at the address http:// www.aponline.gov.in.
The Commissioner of Panchayat Raj & Rural Employment, A.P., Hyderabad
The Commissioner & Director of Municipal administration, A.P., Hyderabad.
The Commissioner, AMR-APARD, Hyderabad
All the District Collectors in the State
All the Chief Executive Officers, Zilla Praja Parishads in the State
All the District Panchayat Officers in the State
Copy to:
The Municipal Administration & Urban Development Department
The Planning Department
The P.S to Hon’ble M (PR) / M (MA&UD)
SECTION OFFICER
RURAL LOCAL BODIES PLAN
| Sl. No. | Sector | PRIs Own Plan | Allocation from Govt. | Grand Total | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| State Plan | CSS | EAP | Total | ||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
| 1. | Agriculture including agricultural extension | ||||||
| 2. | Animal Husbandry, dairying and poultry | ||||||
| 3. | Fisheries | ||||||
| 4. | Drinking Water | ||||||
| 5. | Poverty alleviation programme | ||||||
| 6. | Education, including primary and secondary schools | ||||||
| 7. | Health and sanitation | ||||||
| 8. | Women and Child development | ||||||
| 9. | Welfare of the weaker sections | ||||||
| 10. | Any other activity not covered above | ||||||
C.S.S: Centrally Sponsored Schemes
E.A.P: External Aided Project
URBAN LOCAL BODIES PLAN
| Sl. No. | Sector | ULBs Own Plan | Allocation from Govt. | Grand Total | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| State Plan | CSS | EAP | Total | ||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
| 1. | Water supply and Drainage/sewerage | ||||||
| 2. | Solid Waste Management | ||||||
| 3. | Infrastructure namely Roads, Flyovers, Street Lighting, Parks, Playgrounds, Buildings and others | ||||||
| 4. | Poverty alleviation programme | ||||||
| 5. | Development of SCs, STs, Women and Child and disabled | ||||||
| 6. | Development of Slum Areas | ||||||
| 7. | Social Security | ||||||
| 8. | Education | ||||||
| 9. | Any other activity not covered above | ||||||
C.S.S: Centrally Sponsored Schemes
E.A.P: External Aided Project
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