Majority of Indians live in rural areas, but while adequate attention has been paid to the administration of urban areas and the strength and weaknesses of the district administration, not enough analysis has been made of the requirements of a strong rural administration. The introduction of blocks and block development officers in the Fifties and Sixties was the first major modification in the post-British administration. Thereafter, another major change came through the 73rd and 74th amendments of the Constitution. But no thought has been given to strengthening of the administrative structure in rural areas and the need for trained personnel to man this structure.
The administrative architecture set up by the British helped them get their revenues, including land revenue, to run the government. An all powerful district administration perpetuated their rule and they created the Indian Civil Service to man all the posts of district officers’ as well senior positions in the government to firmly strengthen their presence in India. The rural administration was largely left untouched except the occasional interventions by governor generals like the permanent settlements, etc, to ensure that the revenues did not stop flowing.
After Independence, India has seen a sea change in the attitudes and policies of governments, with the mandate of improving conditions in rural areas. There has been massive flow of funds to rural areas and government policies have concentrated on eradication of rural poverty, strengthening rural infrastructure, generating rural employment and improving health, education and other services in rural areas. Rural development programmes are being financed by the central and state governments. In fact, no authority today, including the planning commission, has a complete inventory of funds flowing into rural areas.
The district magistrate and collector is an overworked person. He is the coordinator of all rural development programmes but has very little time to monitor their progress. A study reveals that he spends less than 20 per cent of his time to look after the development work. In UP the solution that has been found is to create the post of chief development officer to coordinate all programmes of rural development. If from the IAS cadre, the officer spends less than a year on the job as he swiftly moves up the career ladder. So usually, the CDO is a provincial service officer or promoted from the BDO cadre. Under him work the district development officer and a project director with heads from various departments like agriculture, horticulture, animal husbandry, panchayat raj, etc. The CDO does not enjoy direct powers over these and it is a difficult job for him to control them. Then there are other departments like the PWD, irrigation, etc, over which the CDO has no control though they receive maximum funds for executing schemes like Pradhan Mantri Sadak Yojana. Similar is the position of the block development officer who has assistant development officers of various departments working under him, but they report to the line departments and the BDO has limited control over them. In short rural developmental administration is in shambles.
In the revenue administration in rural areas the pivotal institution is the tehsil, which we have in each sub-division headed by a tehsildar, or in some places called mamlatadar. Under the tehsildar, there are naib-tehsildars, supervisor quanungos and lekhpals (who maintain land records of each village). Revenue and other taxes are collected by revenue collectors called amins in north India. Each sub-division is supervised by a sub-divisional officer drawn from the provincial civil service.
This has been a very effective institution right from the British days. The tehsildars and the sub-divisional officers also enjoy magisterial powers and are entrusted with conducting elections. They also settle disputes relating to title possession and demarcation, etc of agricultural lands. They check fair price shops and take action against them, if required. If there are farmers’ agitations they are in the front line of the government to deal with them. The revenue administration is the real cutting edge of the government.
To give better administration in rural areas, it is necessary to create a separate cadre of rural administrators who should be mandated only with the task of rural administration. They should be selected on the basis of an all India service examination, like the civil services. The allied rural services could be the rural agricultural service, the rural medical service, the rural revenue service, the rural finance and accounts service and so on. If the panchayat raj administration has to be strengthened in keeping with the spirit of the 73rd amendment then all these services will have to be created with the same salaries as other all India services and central services. Those recruited for them should be told that they will have work in the rural areas only unlike the present IAS officers, who after working for four or five years in the districts and even less in rural areas, move out to work in the state government or the central government.
From this rural administrative service we should select officers to man the posts of sub-divisional officers, the tehsildars, the block development officers and other generalist officers. The others should be specialised officers to work with panchayat raj institutions. These rural administration officers should man all the posts in rural areas and move out to work with the state government or the central government. Land records should also be maintained by the rural panchayats on the pattern of the municipal boards.
With the strengthening of rural administration the necessity of the villagers running to the district administration will also end. The sooner we implement the concept of rural administrators and make these all India services responsible for implementation of rural development programmes, the better it will be for the majority of our people, who live in rural areas.
Yogendra Narain was chief secretary of UP and secretary to the Union government.
E-mail: yognarain@gmail.com