The rural development ministry has constituted a committee to restructure the district rural development agencies (DRDAs), the body responsible for implementing myriad rural development schemes at the district level.

With the onset of a number of fund- heavy rural development schemes in recent years, the DRDAs, according to the ministry, have become redundant.

“Therefore, in order to strengthen and professionalise the DRDAs, and to meet the new challenges, the government has decided to re-structure them.  It has constituted a committee that will study the structure of the DRDAs and make recommendations as per the terms of reference proposed for the committee,” an internal note issued by the rural development ministry said.

The DRDAs, launched in April 1999, were visualized as a specialised and professional agency capable of managing the anti-poverty programmes of rural development ministry on one hand and to effectively relate these to the overall effort of poverty eradication in the district.

“However, the states have not filled up many of the posts and the quality of the recruitment of staff to the DRDA is not up to the mark. As a result the DRDA set up has been weakened. This is because of the enormous expansion in the volume of funds being handled by the DRDAs but there has been no significant change in the staffing pattern, the methodologies of the recruitment of the staff, their competencies and their training,” the note added. 

Under the terms of reference of the committee, the committee will among others; study the structure of the DRDAs on sample basis, suggest appropriate structure for the DRDAs taking into account the demands in different states, suggest professional qualifications for the members of staff of DRDAs, suggest mode of recruitment and other service conditions of DRDA staff, suggest mode of funding of the DRDAs, suggest integration of DRDAs with Zila Parishads and district administration.