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ECONOMIC TRENDS
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COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
Community Development.—Community development as a method of rural extension is contemplated as an agency through which transformation of the social and economic life of the village community could be initiated. After the initiation of this programme to
be accomplished through a movement devoted to the cause of extension in rural areas. The concept of rural extension gradually broadened into that of Panchayat Raj which included the development of a set-up of interconnected democratic and popular institutions at the village, block and district level in which the representatives of the people in the Village Panchayats, Panchayat Samitis and Zilla Parishad, as well as
the co-operative organisations functioning with the support of various development agencies of the Government work together as a team. One of the principal tasks in the Third Plan was to ensure the growth of the Panchayat Raj institutions so as to enable the community to achieve maximum development on the basis of local man power, economic resources, co-operation and financial assistance from the State sector. In a way it is an ambitious programme of development by enabling public participation in the super-structure of economic development.
Bhandara district did not lay behind in respect of this development method, and had eight development blocks comprising 926 villages during the First and Second Plans. The Third Plan period witnessed the formation of five more blocks. Now all the revenue villages in the district have been covered under this programme. |
