POLICIES AND PROGRAMMES IN HRD
From the concept of HRD elaborated on the previous chapter, it is evident that priority target group identification and programmes aimed at such target groups constitute the major approach in determining policies and programmes of HRD in India. This of course does not imply neglect of population not covered by the target groups in such key areas as Education, Health, Employment, Science and Technology etc. However, the HRD policies in India can best be understood in terms of target groups and programmes designed for them. Some of the more important target groups and related programmes are briefly described below :-
TARGET GROUP : THE RURAL POOR The rural poor consist largely of the landless marginal and small farmers and other marginal workers. In order to reduce the incidence of rural poverty, four policy options have been pursued.
First to increase the asset holding of the poor, redistributive land reform measures have been adopted and programmes for making the asset more productive have been introduced recently.
Second, augmentation of wage incomes has been sought through expansion of employment in agricultural and non-agricultural activities in rural areas.
Third, provision for improved access of the poor to important services like education and health have been sought to be made through the Minimum Needs Programme.
Fourth, special programmes to provide opportunities for betterment of life have been developed for specially disadvantaged groups like Scheduled Castes and Tribes and Women.
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THE INTEGRATED RURAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME Started in 1980, the objective of the programme is to assist the families below the poverty line in rural areas mainly through taking up self-employment activities in agriculture, horticulture, sericulture, animal husbandry, weaving, handicrafts and service and business activities. During the-Seventh Plan 20 million beneficiaries are expected to be covered under the programme, As a result of experience gained over the years, the execution of the programme has been streamlined in several respects, increasing the coverage of women beneficiaries to 30 per cent, with greater involvement of voluntary agencies, peoples' participation and organization of beneficiaries.
From the field experience in the programme it has been concluded that provision of assets to the poor by, itself cannot guarantee income unless the asset matches with the traditional skill and other endowments of the household on the one hand and the demand, supply and infrastructural characteristics of the area on the other. It is considered imperative to identify such traditional skills and ensure the supply of institutional credit for the procurement of the relevant asset by the poor. Attention to the selection of viable schemes and meeting the raw material, credit, marketing and training requirements of the beneficiaries can ensure success of the scheme.
NATIONAL RURAL EMPLOYMENT PROGRAMME This scheme, also launched in 1980, aims to generate additional gainful employment for the unemployed and underemployed persons in the rural areas, to create productive community assets for direct and continuing benefits to the poverty groups and for strengthening the rural, economic and social structure and bring about a general improvement in the quality of life
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in rural areas. It also aims to improve the nutritional standards of rural poor through supply of food grains as part of wages. A target of generation of 1445 million man days has been set for the Seventh Five Year Plan,
About 25% of the outlays under the programme are earmarked for social forestry and 10% for programmes of direct benefit to Scheduled Castes ant Tribes. A large number of schools and other buildings, village roads, tanks etc., have been built under the scheme.
A related scheme called Rural Landless Employment Guarantee Programme aims at expanding opportunities for employment to the rural poor with a view to providing employment for at least 100 days in a year to at least one member of every landless household.
SOCIO-ECONOMIC PROGRAMMES FOR SCHEDULED CASTES
AND SCHEDULED TRIBES A major concern of Indian Planning has been the welfare and development of the weaker sections of society, more especially the groups called scheduled castes and scheduled tribes who constitute a quarter of the total population and who for historical reasons have remained socially and economically backward. In the first two Five Year Plans the `welfare approach' was adopted, but by the end of the Fourth Plan it was evident that any strategy for developing these weaker sections would have to be based on comprehensive economic and human resource development efforts. In the Seventh Plan the thrust is towards the socioeconomic development of the scheduled castes and to give them occupational mobility and economic strength. Programmes are to be designed to fulfil their minimum needs together with emphasis on integration of different sectoral development programmes. For scheduled castes beneficiary oriented programmes are
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emphasised with a clear distinction between those who are engaged in land based activities and those who are in non-land based occupations. In both cases, in addition to Provision of assets and credit facilities, skill improvement forms a major plank of the programme.
The tribal areas present a considerable degree of environmental and ethnic diversity. The majority of tribal areas have remained isolated and backward. With their low levels of training, skills and technology which have largely remained traditional, the natural resources of tribal areas have remained unexploited for the development of tribal areas. The planning process in tribal areas has to be a judicious mix of beneficiary oriented programmes, human resource development and infrastructure development, the bias being towards the first two.
WOMEN'S PROGRAMMES The Constitution of India provides for equal rights and privileges for men and women and makes special provisions for women to help them improve their status in society. A number of social enactments have aimed at removing various constraints. Despite this, women have lagged behind, especially in education. There are also differences in health and nutritional status. A number of steps have been taken to remedy these deficiencies and to improve the socio- economic status of women. Among these mention may be made of the following :-
1) A special cell has been created to monitor employment of women and the implementation of the Equal Remuneration Act.
2) Regional Vocational Centres and several Industrial Training Institutes cater exclusively for women providing them with valuable skill training programmes.
3) In aural Development Programmes and Krishi Vigyan Kendras (Agricultural Training Centres) special emphasis has been given on training of women.
4) Non-formal education centres exclusively for girls have been
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promoted. Preference has been given to appointment of women teachers in schools. Incentives for enrolment of girls have been provided.
5) To boost enrolment in primary classes early childhood education centres for children in the age group 3-6 years have been met up as adjuncts to primary schools in rural and backward areas.
These centres also provide creche facilities for younger siblings of girls attending primary schools.
6) Special programmes have been taken up for women in adult education centres.
7) Under the scheme "Science & Technology for Women" a wide spectrum of activities have been taken up such as development' of smokeless chulhas, use of solar cookers, setting up bio-gas plants and devices for improving water purification system.
8) Programmes which have a bearing on overall economic development of women and reduction in their drudgery have been identified and promoted.
9) Training programmes for women have covered such areas as instrumentation technology for repair and maintenance of electronic equipments.
10) Nutritutional intervention to help the most vulnerable group of women namely pregnant ant nursing mothers belonging to weaker sections has been given high priority.
11) Provision has been made for improving maternal and child health services and for family planning assistance.
During the Seventh Plan all these programmes would be continued and intensified with special emphasis on Education, Health, Employment, and application of Science and Technology. Voluntary organisations are being involved in a major way especially to bring in awareness among women of their rights and privileges.
INTEGRATED CHILD DEVELOPMENT SERVICES This programme of child welfare, according to the VIIth Plan :
"Seeks to lay a solid foundation for the development of the nation's human resource by providing an integrated package of early childhood services. These consist of (i) supplementary nutrition
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(ii) immunisation (iii) health check up (iv) referral services
(v) nutrition and health education and (vi) non-formal education to children below the age of 6 years.
To improve the programme effectiveness it is proposed to ensure uninterrupted supply and delivery of services, especially for children below 3 years. Greater stress would also be laid on training of functionaries and their continued education, coordination between health and welfare departments at the block level would be strengthened. Community support and participation would be elicited in running the programme.
NUTRITION The long-term objective of nutrition policy is to aim at increasing the functional efficiency of the labour force and other segments of the population by promoting the concept of balanced intake of nutrition with locally available food commodities. The policy focusses on improving the nutritional status of a child during the pre-school years. The nutrition policy should also achieve reduction in infant and maternal mortality rates and bring about changes for better in the prevailing pattern of morbidity ; reduction of nutritional deficiencies in vulnerable section of the, population is another important aim. The main efforts would be :
- to provide total immunisation to children in the age group of 0-3.
- to provide education through formal and non-formal means on health, education, nutrition etc.
- to provide protected water supply.
- to control communicable diseases and intestinal infestation.
As a short-term measure, Special attention given to vulnerable section of the people like children, pregnant mothers etc., under the
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Special Nutrition Programme attempts to provide 300 calories and 8-12 grams of protein per beneficiary in the age group 0-6 years and 500 calories and 25 grams of protein for pregnent and nursing mothers. School going children in the age group 6-11 are quite often provided with meals (300 calories) and 8-12 grams of protein.
MINIMUM NEEDS PROGRAMME The objective of this programme is to establish a network of basic services and facilities of social consumption in all the areas upto nationally accepted norms within a time frame. The basic needs identified in the programme are Elementary Education, Adult Education, Rural Health, Rural Water Supply, Rural Roads, Rural Electrification, Rural Housing, Environmental improvement of Urban Slums and Nutrition. The main thrust of the Minimum Needs Programme in the Seventh Plan would be to integrate the programme with other rural development and anti-poverty programmes so as create necessary linkages.
Head Objectives Target by 1990
1. Elementary 100 per enrolment in the age-group A target of 25.53 million children for
Education 6-14 years by 1990. It would be sup- formal and 25 million children for non-
plemented with non-formal education. formal education has been fixed.
2. Adult Education 100 per cent coverage of adults in No target fixed.
the age group 15-35 years by 1990
through non-formal education.
3. Rural health 1. Establishment of one sub-centre To establish 54000 sub-centres in add-
for a population of 5000 in the plains ition to 83000 existing sub-centres so
and 3000 in tribal and hilly areas by as to achieve the objective fully.
2000 A.D
2. One PHC for 30,000 population in To establish 12,000 PHCs in addition
in plains and 20,000 in tribal and to the existing 11,000 with a view to
hilly areas by 2000 A.D achieving the target fully.
3. Establishment of one Community In addition to the existing 649 CHCs
Health Centre for a Population of 1553 more CHCs would be established
of one lakh or one CD Block by 2000 for achieving 40.65 per cent of the
A.D target.
4. Rural Water Supply Coverage of all the remaining 39,000
problem villages as priority item
after which other villages with inad-
equate supply of water will be taken
up.
5. Rural Roads Linking up all remaining villages A normative target of 20487 villages
with a population of 1500 and above has been fixed having a population of
and 50 per cent of the total number 15000 and above and 3851 villages hav-
of villages with population of 1000 ing population of 1000 to 1500.
to 1500 by 1990.
6. Rural Elect- Atleast 65 percent of the villages in A minimum coverage of 65 per cent of
rification each State and UT to be electrified by the villages is aimed are by all Sta-
1990. tes and UTs at the end of 1989-90.
7. Housing Assi- Provision of housing assistance to all Coverage of remaining 0.72 million
stance to Ru- households by 1990. Assistance to inclu- households for allotment of house
ral Landless de house sites construction materials. sites to achieve 100 percent target
Labourers. drinking water well for a cluster of hou- and provision of construction
se and approach roads. assistance to 2.71 million famil-
ies already having housesites.
8. Environmental 100 per coverage of urban slump popu- 9 million slum-dwellers out of the
improvement of lation by 1990 facilities to include remaining 17.5 million would be co-
Urban slumps water supply sewerage, paving of stre- vered under the programme.
ets. storms water carriage. Community
leterines. Areas inhabited by Scheduled
Castes. Particularly seavengers, to be
given priority.
9. Nutrition Nutrition support would be conti-
nued to 11 million eligible perso-
ns and the SNP will be expanded to
all the ICDS Projects. MDM progr-
amme will be consolidated and lin-
ked to health. Potable water and
sanitation.
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EDUCATION By far the most important of the components of HRD in the Indian context is the provision of Education in the widest sense of the term. Education lies at the very core of HRD and the Seventh Five Year Plan provides an array of programmes for increased provision and improvement of Education. Among the various sub-sectors of education elementary education and adult education have been given the highest priority. Reasonable expansion. in Secondary Education, consolidation of higher education and renovation and modernisation of technical education are other important objectives. quality improvement is aimed at through better provision for teacher training and augmentation of facilities. Science and vocational education have been emphasised at, the secondary stage.
In accordance with this approach expansion of opportunities for cultural appreciation and expression and for sports and youth services are important programmes of Human Resource Development. The Seventh Plan provided substantial increase in allocations for cultural heritage dissemination and creativity. Similarly, sports facilities and involvement of youth and students in sports and youth services are being expanded in the Seventh Five Year Plan. Involvement of students in national building tasks through the National Service Scheme is an important programme of HRD.
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