 HRD MECHANISMS

In order to fully appreciate the mechanisms for planning an implementation of HRD policies and programmes it is necessary to understand the planning budgeting and implementation mechanisms currently in operation in India. India being a Union of States, the responsibility for provision of the various components of HRD such as Education, Health, etc., are shared between the Central an State Governments. The State Governments who are the primary implementing agencies in most of the areas comprising HRD determine their own policies and also draw up their five year and annual plan of development. The Central Government, however, has a coordination and leading role in guiding the State policies and also in initiating national level programmes in crucial areas and in developing and ensuring national standards. The Central Government also provides substantial financial assistance to the States.

The Plans submitted by the State Governments under different sectors are coordinated by the Planning Commission headed by the Prime Minister assisted by full time members and a team of professional staff. The Planning Commission has the responsibility for the scrutiny of the five year and annual plans of the States and the Centre ensuring finalisation of the Plans within the available resources and keeping in view national priorities. The Planning Commission works in close cooperation with the concerned Ministerial and the State Governments.

The Planning Commission currently has a full time Member-Charge of Human Resource Development. He looks after Education, Culture, Women & Child Development, Youth Services & Sports, besides Health and Social Welfare.

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Hence at the level of Planning Commission there is a mechanism for coordination of many of the components of H.R.D. particularly the relating to the social sector and quality of life. Also the Member incharge of H.R.D. works in close cooperation with other members who are incharge of Science & Technology, Employment, Agriculture, Rural Development, etc, In a sense, therefore, the Planning Commission thus becomes an effective coordinating agency for H.R.D. As it is charged with the responsibility of developing perspective long term plans as wall as mid-term plans and annual plans and is also responsible for evaluation and monitoring, the planning Commission is in a unique position to ensure the development of H.R.D. and to monitor their implementation.

Its coordination, however, is confined to policy and planning aspects, The executive responsibility for formulating H.R.D. policies and their implementation vests with a number of administrative Ministries. The most important among them from of point of view is the Ministry of H.R.D. This Ministry comprises the Departments of Education, Culture, Youth Services & Sports, and Women & Child Development. A Cabinet level Minister is incharge of the entire Ministry. He is assisted by two State Ministers; one incharge of Education & Culture and another incha of Youth Services & Sports, and Women & Child Development. The Minister is assisted by a full time Secretary for Human Resource Development whose task is, inter alia, to coordinate the work of four independent Departments each with a full time Secretary,

Similarly in some of the States similar mechanism has been set up with a full time Secretary for H.R.D.

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co-ordinating the work of Education, Health etc. However, it may be noted that there is no effective mechanism as yet developed for coordination between Education, and Employment Science and Technology, Rural Development etc. One of the important tasks ahead is the development of H.R.D. programme after due coordination with all the Departments concerned with this task.

Within the Ministry of H.R.D. a certain measure of coordination has been attempted. As pointed out by Mid-ter-- Appraisal of the 7th Five Year Plan a major theme of the 7th Plan is the integration of H.R.D. programmes with other programmes. Some progress has been made towards this. Firs integration between different activities within the sector has been promoted e.g. between health care and family welfare; Second, integration between health, education and related sectors has been pursued e.g. between child-care and pre-primary education, between education health and nutrition in the integrated Child Health Care and enrolment and retent-- in the school health programme. Third, human resource development is being integrated with other development activities e.g. by use of National Rural Employment Programme etc.

The executive responsibility for human resource development at a national level is now shared by the Ministry of H.R.D. with other Ministries such as Ministry of Labour which is responsible for technical training of workers, the Department of Health which is responsible for the provision of health services, the Department of Science & Technology and indeed several other In statutes working in this area. Mention must be made of the Institute of Applied Manpower

Research with its programmes in the area of man-power and human resource development. A Cabinet Committee an H.R.D. has also been set up recently. Thus while it is true that there is no tingle agency which is responsible for all H.R.D. programmes a strong lead has been taken in this regard by the Ministry of H.R.D, which has sought to establish linkages with all other departments and agencies concerned with H.R.D.

As already stated similar arrangements exist at the State level in a number of States wherein Secretaries have be designated as incharge of H.R.D. But it is not adequate to have nodal agencies coordinating H.R.D. programmes at Central and State levels only. The major requirement is that of coordination at the cutting edge of implementation namely, in the villages and blacks. The Seventh Plan has pointed out that over the years the delivery system particularly in regard to social services has not been able to obtain effectiveness as originally envisaged. The position varies among the State but an almost uniform feature has been the gradual erosion of the control of the Block Development Officer over the extension team at the block and village levels. Simultaneously, a multiplicity of functionaries has emerged at this level for implementation of a large number of programmes aimed at the same people for raising their standard of living. Similarly,

Panchayati Raj institutions in one form or another exist in most States but they have not been effectively involved in the implementation or rural development programmes. Where they are so involved quality programme implementation has be decidedly better.

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With the launching of the large scale multi-sectoral country-wide programmes of rural development aiming both at individual households and at the creation of assets in the rural areas the original concept of community Development could be said to have been substantially restored. This would be further strengthened by the measures already taken to rationalise the administration and delivery mechanism.

What goes by the name of Community Development will have to be viewed more in the nature of a scheme for village development which would imply the planning and implementation of a number of residual activities the village level which do not get covered in the norm sectoral plans and special programmes. This in turn will have to be on the basis of local decentralised planning at the village and block levels for which both in the nature of outright and incentive grants, would have to be placed at the disposal of panchayati Raj and Community Development bodies rather than by forming sectoral plans for the villages at the state and National levels. This would imply a considerable degree of rationalisation in the drawing up plans for community Development and Panchayati Raj and substantial autonomy in their implementation.

In addition States would be called upon to active Panchayati Raj institutions particularly at the village and block levels with a view to ensure their active involvement in the planning and development.

INVOLVEMENT OF VOLUNTARY AGENCIES

According to the Seventh Plan there is a good deal of voluntary effort in India especially in the field of social welfare but according to the Seventh Plan there has been inadequate recognition of their role in the process of accelerating social and economic development. Voluntary agencies have been known to play an important role by providing new models and approaches ensuring feed-back and securing involvement of families living below the poverty line. During the seventh Plan serious effort will be made to involve voluntary agencies in various development programmes particularly in planning and implementation of programmes of rural development. Voluntary agencies have developed expertise and competence in many non-traditional areas to plan the own schemes instead of expecting Government to do so The Seventh Plan provides the following role for voluntary agencies:

(i) To supplement Government effort so as to offer the rural poor choices and alternatives;

(ii) To be the eyes and ears of the people at the village level;

(iii) To set an example. It should be possible for the voluntary agency to adopt simple, innovative, flexible and inexpensive means with its limited resources to reach a larger number with less overhead and with greater community participation.

(iv) To activate the delivery system and to make it effective at the village level to respond to the felt needs of the poorest of the poor;

(v) To disseminate information;

(vi) To make communities as self-reliant as possible;

(vii) To show how village ant indigenous resources could be used, how human resources, rural skills and local knowledge, grossly underutilised at present, could be used for their own development.

(viii) To demystify technology and bring it in a simpler form to the rural poor;

(ix) To train a cadre of grassroot workers who believe in professionalising volunteerism;

(x) To mobilise financial resources from within the community with a view to making communities stand on their own feet;

(xi) To mobilise and organise the poor and generate awareness to demand quality services and impose a community system of accountability on the performance of village-level government functionaries.

The accept in the Seventh Plan will be to professionalise volunteerism, to introduce professional competence and managerial expertise in keeping with the resources and capabilities of voluntary agencies. There is to be mutual trust and understanding between Government and voluntary agencies at the village level. Several consultative groups have been established for facilitating exchange of views.

The human resource available in the training and infrastructure of voluntary agencies need to be mobilised and used effectively at the village level in the seventh Five Year plan. The non-formal and formal skills, methods and approaches of building confidence among the rural poor to undertake responsibilities for planning and implementing programmes on their own/the training institutions the voluntary agencies have developed, needs to be considered for application on large scale.

The National Education policy and the programme of Action have devoted considerable attention to the management of education system and its re-orientation. At the district level it envisages setting up of the District Board of Education with responsibility for implementation of all educational programmes including school, non- formal and adult education upto higher secondary level. The Boards will also be vested with the responsibility for planning which would include, inter alia, area development, special planning, institutional planning, administrative and financial control and personnel management with respect to primary, middle, secondary and higher secondary schools.

The District Boards will be required to formulate development strategies and plan educational activities of these Institutes in the entire districts. The Plan will, inter alia, look into settlement pattern of habitations, distribution of educational institutions the demographic profile and projections. The District Boards of Education are to be vested with appropriate statutory authority. At the village, Village Education committees comprising not more than 15 members, representation from parents, Panchayat, cooperatives, Women, SC & ST minorities are to be constituted.

The Programme of Action also states that successful implementation of programmes elementary education, non-formal education, an early childhood care, adult education etc. will require people's involvement and participation at the grass root level and participation of voluntary agencies and social activitist groups on a much larger scale. Considering the need, for ensuring relationship of the genuine partnership between the Government and voluntary agencies Government will take positive steps to promote their wider involvement. Consultations will be held with them from time to time and representation given to them on bodies responsible for making decision in respect of them. They will be assured necessary facilities to participate in implementation of programmes procedures for selection of voluntary agencies and provision of financial assistance to them will be streamlined.

Yet another innovative mechanism developed in on one or two areas of H.R.D. relates to the concept of technology mission. Eradication of 30

illiteracy is one of the technology missions envisaged. 30 This is being launched as a technical and societal Mission. Such a Mission approach presupposes that we are at the threshold of momentous scientific, technological and pedagogic changes. In pursuance of the Mission effort will be made to (i) improve the physical environment, power supply and the illumination etc. of the Adult Education/Centres; (ii) facilitate and expedite preparation, printing, distribution of topical and relevant learning materials and learning aids on a decentralised basis: (iii) enrich the process of learning with audio- visual material by enlarging the range of Television and Radio broadcasts and also by developing cheaper and sturdier equipment; (iv) reduce the time-lag between pedagogic research and the assimilation of its results in the teaching-learning processes; and (v) create inter- active environment between the electronic teaching devices and the learners.

Mechanism for coordination between manpower requirements of the economy and education & training system is another important area to be considered. This coordination has to be at different levels. A certain amount of broad coordination occurs in the very process of planing. The Five Years Plans are down up on the basis of perspective plan and in-put and out-put analysis. Given the anticipated growth rate of the economy and parameters of work force in relation to out- put on current technologies manpower requirements would be assessed and broad directions indicted for further education and training. This is being done by the Planning Commission with the assistance of institutions like the Institute of Applied Manpower Research. The Institute also conducts several studies and research on the utilisation of manpower in various

sectors and these give valuable insight for further planning. The Department of Science & Technology and the Department of Electronics also apply themselves to the task of forecasting or estimating the future requirements of manpower particularly in emerging areas of technology. In addition to these micro sectoral assessment there are also detailed Surveys conducted at district and other levels which provide useful information for the deployment of manpower and further education and training of manpower. Over the years it has been the experience that micro level projections may often err on one side or the other as many viable paramters such as market conditions, technologies rates of growth, monsoon etc. are liable to the change that is more importent therefore, is to device mechanism for keeping a constant watch on, surpluses and shortages as they are emerging in different areas and to provide adequate feed-back both to educational and employment agencies so that they might suitably modify their policies. Currently a technical manpower information system is being developed through the Institute of Applied Manpower Research. This Institute is the nodal agency for the technical manpower system. It operates through several `watch towers' at State level or local agencies which keep in touch with the ground level situation assessing mis-management between supply and demands in terms of numbers as well as qualitative requirements.

There is as yet no well-knit system of fostering a H.R.D. approach and for ensuring coodination and integration of H.R.D. programmes. One should also be careful not to hint growth of sectoral programmes in the name oil coordination. The major challenge of the coming decades will be the development of H.R.D. mechanisms adequate and refined enough to meet the diverse requirements of a vast, growing and dynamic society.