District Rural Development Agency (DRDA)

The District Rural Development Agency (DRDA) has traditionally been the principal organ at the District level to oversee the implementation of different anti-poverty Programmes. Since its inception, the administrative costs of the DRDAs were met by way of setting apart a share of the allocations for each Programme.
However, of late, the number of the programmes had increased and while some of the programmes provided for administrative costs of the DRDAs, others did not. there was no uniformity among the different programmes with reference to administrative costs. Keeping in view the need for an effective agency at the district level to coordinate the anti-poverty effort, a new Centrally Sponsored Scheme for strengthening the DRDAs has been introduced with effect from 1st April 199. Accordingly, the administrative costs are met by providing separate budget provisions. This scheme which is funded on a 75:25 basis between Centre and States, aims at strengthening and professional sing the DRDAs. The funding ration respect of NE States has been revised to 90:10 with effect from the financial year 2008-2009.

1. IMPORTANT OFFICIALS DETAILS
2. Personal Assistant to Collector (Development) – 04362-231412 – 7373704214
3. RTI CONTACTS
4. Assistant Project Officer (Infra- I) – 7402607319

OBJECTIVES

• DRDAs is a supporting and a facilitating organization and needs to play a very effective role as a catalyst in development process.
• The District Rural Development Agency is visualized as a specialized and a professional agency capable of managing the anti-poverty programs of the Ministry of Rural Development on the hand and to effectively relate these to the overall effort of poverty eradication in the District.
• DRDAs must themselves be more professional and should be able to interact effectively with various other agencies. They are expected to coordinate with the line departments, the Panchayat Raj institutions, The banks and other financial institutions, the NGOs as well as the technical institutions, with a view to gathering the support and resources required for poverty reduction effort in the district.
• The DRDAs are expected to coordinate effectively with the Panchayat Raj Institutions Under no circumstances will they perform the functions of PRIs.
• The DRDAs will monitor closely the implementation process, besides ensuring that the quality of agencies in improving implementation process, beside ensuring that the quality of implementation of programs is high.
• DRDAs shall take necessary step to improve the awareness regarding rural development and poverty alleviation particularly among the rural poor. This would involve issues of poverty, the opportunities available to the rural poor and generally infusing a sense of confidence in their ability to overcome poverty.
DRDAs shall coordinate and oversee the conduct of the BPL Census and such other surveys that are required from time to time. The DRDAs shall also carry out/aid in carrying out action research/or evaluation studies that are initiated by the Central/State Governments. DRDAs should deal only with the anti-poverty programmes of the Ministry of Rural Development. if DRDAs are to be entrusted with programmes of other ministries or those of the State Governments.

FUNCTIONS

Each District will have its own District Rural Development Agency. Ordinary it would be society registered under a Societies Registration Act. In respect of such states where DRDA does not have a separate identity a separate cell should be created in ZillaParishad / District Collector which maintains a separate identity and separate accounts, so that the accounts are capable of being audited separately. This cell should be directly under the charge of CEO or alternatively an officer who has the qualifications to be a Project Director. The accounts of DRDAs should under no circumstances be merged of amalgamated with those of the ZillaParishad / District Collector.
In order to be effective, the DRDA must have an appropriate staffing structure as well as suitable personnel policy. Keeping in view the role and functions of the DRDA listed in the previous chapter, the staffing structure of DRDA must include positions for Planning for poverty alleviation, Project formulation, Social organization and Capacity building. Gender concerns, Engineering supervision and Quality control, Project monitoring, Accountancy and Audit functions as well as Evaluation and Impact studies. An indicative staffing structure is given in Annexure and is also detailed below. The State Government may modify the structure suitably, but without altering the basic design, to take care of the needs of individual district keeping in view their size as well as specificity. However, this will also be subject to the overall ceiling of administrative costs admissible to the DRDAs in the State. By and large the staff appointed should be dedicated to DRDA- related works and should not be frequently transferred.
1. Chairman of ZillaParishad / District Collector.
2. All MPs and MLAs and MLOs of the District.
3. 1/3rd of PanchayatSamiti Chairpersons to be nominate by rotation in alphabetical order for a tenure of one year, one of whom must belong to SC/ST and another a woman
4. CEO of ZillaParishad / District Collector – Chief Executive Officer / Executive Director
5. Head of the Central Cooperative Bank of the District
6. Chairman, Regional Rural bank
7. District Lead Bank Officer
8. Representative of the Reserve Bank of India at district level
9. NABARD representative at district level
10. General manager, DIC
11. Representative of KVIB
12. District Officer, in charge of Scheduled Castes /Scheduled Tribes Welfare
13. District Women & Child Welfare Officer
14. District officer dealing with welfare of the disabled

SCHEMES / PROGRAMMES-3