Institutions of Grassroots Empowerment and Rural Development Attainments

Policy approach to rural development in independent India has evolved through various stages. Limited success of different initiatives prompted setting up of Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) as statutory local self-governing bodies for securing faster rural development through greater grassroots empowerment. After a couple of decades of the 73rd Constitution Amendments that instituted the PRIs, it was felt necessary to ask whether PRIs had succeeded in percolating power to the grassroots, and if so, whether such empowerment expedited the pace of development in villages. In pursuit of this composite question, a field investigation was carried out in six carefully selected villages in Assam in 2012. Development attainments and improvements in such attainments have been found to be higher in the villages where institutions of grassroots empowerment have taken deeper roots. The study makes a case for deepening of the grassroots empowerment process for expeditious overcoming of the backlogs in rural development.