District planning in India

Agriculture and allied sectors.

District Planning is the process of preparing an integrated

plan for the local government sector in a district taking
into account the resources (natural, human and nancial)
available and covering the sectoral activities and schemes
assigned to the district level and below and those implemented through local governments in a state.[1]

Availability and development of water sources.

Industries especially traditional, small industries
including food processing.
Infrastructure including power.

District is the most suitable administrative unit for decentralized planning below the state level as it possesses the
required heterogeneity and is small enough to undertake
people in planning and implementation and to improve
productivity; district planning is an important tool.

Drinking water and sanitation.

Literacy, school education.
Health and medical facilities.

With the 73rd and 74th amendments[2] of the

Constitution of India, decentralization of planning
is emphasized and the methodology of district plan was
changed. The approach suggested for the preparation of
the district plan is as follows:.[3]

Poverty reduction and basic needs.

Gender and children.
Social justice SC / ST, Persons with disability etc.

To assist the DPC in preparing the vision document (and

subsequently to vet the draft plan proposals), a Technical Support Group may be constituted in each district. it
The sequence in the preparation of district plan can be as may consist of departmental ocers nominated for the
purpose in addition to their duties or retired persons lofollows:
cally available or a local academic institution or estab Preparation of district vision, block vision and gram lished NGO with a proven record similarly, technical
support as appropriate, may be organized for the urban
panchayat level vision.
areas, intermediate panchayats and village
Preparation of participatory plan involving Gram
If undertaken in a campaign mode, the preparation of viSabha from Gram Panchayats to Zilla Parishad.
sion documents can be completed in two months time.
Preparation of plans by Urban Local Bodies.
Further, if District is to be the economic unit for planning
Consolidation of plans prepared by local bodies by exercise, the scope of vision document could be expanded
to include areas of comparative advantage of each district
District Planning Committees.
which would be the basis for attracting private investment.

Steps in district planning

Planning starts with the preparation of vision documents

by local bodies.[4]

3 Block vision
After nalizing the vision document for the district at the
district level, the document will be discussed at the block
level and a vision document for the block will be prepared
with some modications based on the conditions of the
block. The vision document for each block need not be
completely dierent because the agro-ecological conditions of some planning units at this level may be same,
particularly when a district is divided into a large number of Inter Mediate Panchayats as in the case of Andhra
Pradesh. Even though the same vision is adopted for
some blocks / mandals, it is necessary to have the vision
owned by the Intermediate Panchayat. This exercise will

District visioning

A vision document is for 10 to 15 years is to be prepared

by the district and for each local government based on
a participatory assessment. The DPC may hold formal
interactions with local governments and other key stakeholders on this and then nalise it. The document should
clearly identify the key reasons for backwardness / development shortcomings and address issues impeding development.
District vision document will cover :-[5]
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be done by a team of experts at block level. The same

team will be responsible for plans at the GP level. However, the team will take some members like professionals
or retired persons belonging to the area to assist the team
in the preparation of the plan. The general formats for
planning at the lowest unit level viz., GP or ULB will be
prepared at the district level and they will be adopted with
certain modications at the block level.

DISTRICT PLAN

6 District plan

The nal stage is the preparation of the district plan. This

will be nalized after the Block Plans are nalized in the
same way as the Block Plan is nalized on the basis of the
GP Plans in the Block. The schemes that will not gure
in the Block Plans, but are essential for the development
of the district will be identied at this stage. Further, an
Vision of the Gram Panchayat will also be prepared ac- attempt will have to be made to achieve functional and
cordingly. The vision of the GP will be based on the spatial integration and use the norms for the provision of
Socio-economic Prole of the GP and views of the GP. social infrastructure. The above ve steps will help in
the preparation of the perspective plan. To work out the
annual plans, the nancial resources available have to be
taken into account. The local government component of
the District Plan would emerge from the resource enve4 Plan
for
grama
pan- lope containing the following sources of funds:

chayat/municipality
Own resources available for development
At the third stage, the plan at the GP or ULB will be prepared. This will be prepared by the team with the help
of peoples participation. The will rst interact with the
GP and prepare a vision on the lines of the district vision.
Once the Gram Panchayat vision is approved, the team
will conduct several Group Discussions to nd out the potentials, needs and constraints of the village economy in
Gram Sabha. The felt needs of these communities and the
support needed for improving their livelihood conditions
will be elicited. Once this exercise is completed, it will
be discussed in the Gram Sabha. This approach will help
to study the situation thoroughly and prepare the plan. In
particular, all the schemes CSS State sponsored schemes
will be examined thoroughly with a view to understand
their suitability to the area. This can be more easily ascertained from the beneciaries/stake holders. The plan
should also take into account the long term development
perspective of the GP and also natural resource management (NRM) aspects.

Plan for block panchayats

The above three steps followed the top down approach in

the preparation of the district plan. After this GP Plan
is prepared and no plan is ready at higher levels except
the vision. The Plans at the higher levels will be prepared in the next steps. In this step, the GP plans will
be consolidated and put before the IP. In the GP plans,
the benets of some of the schemes will go beyond the
GP and such schemes may gure in the other GP plans
also. Hence, they have to be separated and duplication
has to be avoided. Similarly, some schemes which provide benets beyond the GP level may not be identied
in any GP. The Block Plan has to identify those schemes
/ projects. This exercise will be done at the meetings of
the Intermediate Panchayat level.

Transfers by State Finance Commission for development purposes

Twelfth Finance Commission grants passed on by
the State Government
Untied grants for local planning
Grants in respect of Centrally Sponsored Schemes.
Grants for State Plan schemes assigned for implementation through local Governments
Grants for externally supported schemes assigned
for implementation through local governments
Estimated contribution by the communities themselves
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.
1. 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;
2. 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;
3. 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
connes of the district.

Integration of entire local plans

Panchayats have a clear idea as to what the draft plans

of Village Panchayats will contain, Similarly the District
In the realization of the district vision, district plans Panchayats would need to consider the approved plans of
will need to put together resources channelised from all Village and Block Panchayats before nalizing theirs.
sources including district segments to the State Plan,
Integration of resources
CSSs, Special Programmes such as Employment Guarantee, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan, Rural Health Mission,
Grants-in-aid for specic purposes from Finance Com- There are several schemes both Centrally sponsored and
mission, Bharat Nirman etc. Therefore consolidation State sponsored which Panchayats can utilize, integrate
is a task that goes much beyond compilation and con- into local plans and to which they can contribute addinotes a degree of value addition through integration of tional resources. This would comprise two aspects, as
local plans. There are several aspects of integration of below:
plans that have to be considered in the preparation of
the draft development plan. The dierent dimensions
Integration with State Plans
of integration have been discussed very succinctly in the
planning guidelines[6] for local bodies in Kerala as de- There are several State Plans, which as implemented can
tailed below and could be adapted for general use:
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. For
instance, the drawing of electric wires to villages could
This would mean integration of schemes such as roads be complemented by the Panchayat taking up the wiring
that run through one or more Panchayats. Such kinds of BPL houses.
of Multi Panchayat infrastructure projects could be taken
Integration of CSSs with local plans
up with proportionate contributions from the Panchayats concerned dovetailed into the funding available from
above and entrusted to one local government for execu- It is important that in the interest of ecient use of retion.
sources, 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
Sectoral integration
accordance with the guidelines of each programme. Thus
once priorities and works are identied and prioritized
This relates to the integration that takes place within a
through a single planning process, components pertaining
sector. For instance, an integrated approach to agriculto a particular sector could be taken up through schemes,
tural development would require the integration of sevincluding CSSs while still keeping within the guidelines
eral schemes relating to agriculture, such as horticulture,
of those schemes.
drip irrigation, high yielding varieties and integrated pest
management.
Integration with local resources
Spatial integration

Cross-sectoral integration
To ensure maximum impact from dierent 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 soil conservation, water harvesting, micro irrigation, bio-mass generation, sheries,
animal husbandry, agro processing and micro enterprise
components, all properly sequenced.
Vertical integration
This is based on the precept that District and Intermediate
Panchayats ought to perform activities which have the advantages of scale and which cannot be done by the lower
tiers of local government. This will require that Block

Planning can provide for local investments to be catalysed through local resources or initiatives. For example,
village knowledge centers and 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. By this, we do not meant that Panchayats ought to run industry locally, but that it catalogs
local skills and natural resource endowments and facilitate the development of business linkages.
Rural Urban Integration
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 mechanisms of
joint programmes to be nanced by State government institutions and joint contributions by urban and rural local
bodies.

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EXTERNAL LINKS

Summary of district planning

methodology

[6] See Guidelines for decentralized planning in local governments of Govt of Kerala for eleventh ve-year plan, Govt
Order(MS) No. 128/2007/LSGD, dated,14-05-2007,

In short, the district planning start with a vision and end

up in an integrated plan for the district. Preparation of a
district vision is the rst signicant event in district planning. On the basis of district vision document, a plan
will be prepared at the Gram Sabha level. The Gram
Panchayat may nalise its plan based on prioritise exerging from the Gram Sabha and earmarking suggestions for
the Intermediate Panchayat. Projects and activities which
can be implemented at the Gram Panchayat level should
be included as Gram Panchayati Plan. Those projects
and activities which can be implemented only in more
than one Gram Panchayat, will be forwarded to the Intermediate Panchayats to be considered for inclusion into
the Intermediate Panchayat Plan. The Gram Panchayat
plans should also provide an estimate of the community
contribution that can be mobilized for the purpose of implementing the development plan.

[7] District planning in Kerala : The concept , history and procedures by K Rajasekharan, In T M Joseph : Decentralized governance and development, New Delhi, Deep &
Deep,2009 P 214 241

Based on these suggestions received from Gram Panchayats and its own priorities the Intermediate Panchayat
should nalise its plan. Projects and activities, which
can be implemented at the Intermediate Panchayat leve
should be included as Intermediate Panchayat Plan.
Those projects and activities which need to be implemented in more than one intermediate panchayat will be
forwarded to the District Panchayat to be considered for
inclusion into the District Panchayat Plan.
Based on the Gram Panchayat Plans, the intermediate
Panchayat Plans and District Panchayat Plans, the District Planning Committee shall nalise the District Plan
for the district and will form part of the State plan.[7]

See also
District Planning in Kerala
District Planning Committees in India

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References

[1] For a detailed understanding of the concept of district

planning see District Planning Lessons from India, Rome,
FAO,1995
[2] See 74th Constitutional amendment act 1994</
[3] See the Drsft guidelines for the preparation of district
plan, Govt of Assam, Panchayat and Rural Development
Department, Dispur , Guwahaty
[4] See Manual for integrated district planning, New Delhi,
Planning Commission, 2008 PP 51 - 132
[5] Guidelines for district plan in the eleventh ve-Year plan

11 External links
1. Manual on Integrated District Planning, Planning
Commission of India, 2008
2. District planning lessons form India Rome,
FAO,1995

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