Translating farmers' constraints into development priorities - participatory rural appraisal of a village in Rajasthan

摘要

Rural households in any particular area face a multitude of developmental problems. However, only a few of them can be addressed in an effective manner during a given period of time. Identifying priority areas of intervention and their ranking is anessential component of the priority setting exercise for development. We are faced with a number of sophisticated and exotic models advocating set formulae for raising national income and attaining development. However, these models presuppose people asmere objects of development and adopt a 'blueprint' to the issues concerned whether at the national or at the village level. Even when the results from the application of such models are not very encouraging, especially in the context of rural development, the mindset is such that development professionals are unable to accept anything different. They tend to operate on a basic presumption that they are the best judge of any situation and that the welfare of rural masses rests solely on them. Hence, with best of knowledge, resources and benign motives, they remain oblivious of the fact that the majority of their rural clients are passive spectators of their magic wand of development. In the absence of participatory framework at the grass-root level, projects for rural masses are ill-informed, ill-conceived, and show little capability of generating benefits which the programmes envisage.