The government today announced
disbanding of the three-decade-old District Rural Development Agency (DRDA), an organ responsible for overseeing implementation of anti-poverty programmes of Rural Development Ministry.
The agency will now be rechristened and it will perform its role under zila parishads, the local elected bodies at the district level.
Announcing the decision here, Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh said the DRDAs, which were set up as independent societies in 1980, would be attached and function as part of the zila parishads.
"... There is the overwhelming view is that the DRDA should now function as professional units, professional cells, professional divisions of the zila parishads and not have a separate independent, autonomous existence through the Society's Act," he said in his concluding remarks at the National Conference of Project Directors of DRDAs here.
"As of April 1, 2014, the DRDAs as constituted today under the Society's Act will not exist," he said, adding there would be state rural development agencies to deal with the issues like staffing and functioning of the district rural development planning units.
The decision to disband the DRDA was taken on the recommendation of a committee constituted under the chairmanship of V Ramchandran, Chairmen- Emeritus, Centre for Management Development, Thiruvananthapuram with the objective of strengthening and professionalising DRDA to meet the challenge of rural development in the present context.
Ramachandran-led panel had submitted its report in March 2012.
Ramesh said the new name for the DRDAs that exist today has not been finalised and these can be called as the District Rural Development Units or District Rural Development Planning Units.
