Abstract

The allocation of appropriate funds for any development sector is a major issue in which the three levels of rural development are involved, namely the Panchayats, its block and district. There is a huge disparity between the funds proposed under a bottom-up decentralized planning system from the Panchayat and block levels and the top-down release of funds from the district. The targeted beneficiaries are totally unaware of the development goals and their priorities for fund utilization. Besides, there is a major gap in the sector-wise planning for funds and the scheme-wise release of funds due to a lack of clarity on sector-wise allocation of funds involving various schemes. Further, there are various government agencies to actuate the development mostly under the influence of vested interest groups. India as a country is largely rural, out of which a significant area is still backward. For India to improve its development indices of health, education and livelihood, there have to be some innovative approaches that can provide effective objective functions based decentralized planning model for backward area development. The five-year plans of India henceforth have to be more meaningful in terms of priority based backward areas development.

Key words: Decentralized planning, objective functions and planning model.