| Author | Poudyal, Lokendra Prasad |
| Call Number | AIT Thesis no.HS-82-16 |
| Subject(s) | Rural development--Nepal--Nuwakot District
|
| Note | A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science, School of Engineering and Technology |
| Publisher | Asian Institute of Technology |
| Abstract | The Sixth Five Year Plan (1980-1985) of Nepal has given great
emphasis to the mobilization of locally available resources
through local leadership and popular participation. The panchayats are made responsible to prepare plans that reflect the priorities of local people. In this perspective, this study aims at assessing the general problems and prospects of Integrated Rural Development
planning at the local level with major focus on the extent of
awareness of and participation in local development projects,
procedure of incorporating people's needs and aspirations,
identification of functionally effective organization at the
district level and the general methods adopted for sectoral
coordination.
The findings of the study reveal that the official standing of
villagers in panchayat has influenced their level of awareness and participation in projects. The level of income, education and accessibility to
district headquarters have no
significant influence upon these variables. However, the Village Panchayat members and ordinary villagers are significantly different in
terms of their level of income and education. Preferences of both Village Panchayat members and the ordinary villagers for a particular need is found to be significantly congruent but the ordinary villagers prefer income generating projects as compared to the priority given for food and medicine by the Village Panchayat members. projects from the village level are forwarded to the district through both the formal and informal channels. Lack of detailed cost estimates and technical guidance in preparing projects are the main reasons for the failure or incompleteness of projects. Coordination among agencies at the district level is attained through advance commitments. However,
these are distorted sometimes when the central level agency
assigns new tasks to the district level after the preparation of the District Development Plan. Personal contact between officials is found to be more effective for coordination than the formal mechanism of sectoral committees.
The study concludes that the development institutions are still
not effective in attaining the objective of mobilizing popular
participation as envisaged by the Integrated Panchayat Development Design. There is a gap between project formulation
and implementation. Local recommendations tend to be village need oriented but what is implemented tends to deviate from these due to central level intervention while approving them. As remedial action the study has suggested better information diffusion through small group discussion at war d level, regular village panchayat meetings, system of alternative project recommendations,
project formulation training, introduction of more income
generating as well as demonstration projects at the local level and advance information of the projects to be handed down to the district level from the central level. Recommendations are also
made for further study with regard to the identification of the
method of increasing interaction among local institutions and
ordinary villagers, large sample research for the verification of
findings from this study and influence of socio-cultural
heterogeneity upon awareness of and participation in projects.
|
| Year | 1982 |
| Type | Thesis |
| School | School of Engineering and Technology |
| Department | Department of Civil and Infrastucture Engineering (DCIE) |
| Academic Program/FoS | Human Settlement (HS) |
| Chairperson(s) | Dias, Hiran D.
|
| Examination Committee(s) | Weber, Karl E. ; Vokes, Richard W. A.
|
| Scholarship Donor(s) | United States Agency for International Development (USAID) |
| Degree | Thesis (M.Sc.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 1982 |