Integrated Rural Development Program

The Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP) is a rural development program of the Government of India launched in financial year 1978 and extended throughout India by 1980. It is a self-employment program intended to raise the income-generation capacity of target groups among the poor. The target group consists largely of small and marginal farmers, agricultural labourers and rural artisans living below the poverty line. The pattern of subsidy is 25 per cent for small farmers, 33-1/3 per cent for marginal farmers, agricultural labourers and rural artisans and 50 per cent for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes families and physically handicapped persons. The ceiling for subsidy is Rs.6000/- for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes families and the physically handicapped; for others, it is Rs.4000/-in non-DPAP/non-DDP areas and Rs.5000/- in DPAP and DDP areas. Within the target group, there is an assured coverage of 50 per cent for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, 40 per cent for women and 3 per cent for the physically handicapped. Priority in assistance is also given to the families belonging to the assignees of ceiling surplus land, Green Card holders covered under the Family Welfare Programme and freed bonded labourers.

RDP is a major self-employment programme for poverty alleviation. The objective of IRDP is to provide suitable income-generating assets through a mix of subsidy and credit to below-poverty-line families with a view to bring them above the poverty line. A family with an annual income of Rs. 20,000/- and below per annum is considered to be below the poverty line based on the 1998 below Poverty Line Census. The list of individual and family activities which are eligible for assistance with the unit cost of each is placed in Annexure.

The aim is to raise recipients above the poverty line by providing substantial opportunities for self-employment. During the 7th five-year plan, the total expenditure under the program was Rs 33.2 million, and Rs 53.7 million of term credit was mobilized. Some 13 million new families participated, bringing total coverage under the program to more than 18 million families. These development programs have played an important role in increased agricultural production by educating farmers and providing them with financial and other inputs to increase yields.

The objective of IRDP is to enable identified rural poor families to cross the poverty line by providing productive assets and inputs to the target groups. The assets, which could be in primary, secondary or tertiary sectors, are provided through financial assistance in the form of subsidy by the government and term credit advanced by financial institutions. The program is implemented in all the blocks in the country as a centrally sponsored scheme funded on 50:50 basis by the centre and the state. The scheme has been merged with another scheme named Swarnajayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY) since 01.04 1999.

The scheme was introduced because the Government of India realized that the piecemeal efforts in the sphere of rural development had not achieved the targeted objectives. The IRDP was proposed to provide self-employment opportunities to the rural poor through provision of capital subsidy and bank credit so as to help rural poor acquire productive income-generating assets and training to upgrade their skills.

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