PRIA@40

Objectives

District Planning Committee of Madhubani district would anchor the process of participatory planning at different levels with support from different institutional structures. The DPC consolidates the plans of different panchayats and municipalities to prepare the draft district plan.

Geographical spread

Madhubani district, Bihar

Key areas/components

SWOT analysis of DPC Madhubani: Interaction with DPC members undertaken to gauge the strengths and weaknesses of the DPC and coordination with line department officials.
Focused workshop-cum-training programme at district level in all the 21 blocks of the district.
Constitution of planning teams and their orientation and training.
Identification of local capacities/support groups and their training to provide support to the DPC in the preparation of the plan.
Supporting micro-planning in selected panchayats and municipalities.
Consolidation of plans from different tiers of panchayats and municipalities by the DPC.
Preparation of draft district plan under the guidance and supervision of DPC, with handholding support from PRIA.

Outputs

DPC members became aware of their roles and responsibilities and started participating in the Integrated District Planning (IDP) process.
At the baseline of the intervention only three DPC meetings had been held in two years; these were to approve the plans. But after the model building exercise, the DPC met seven times to discuss issues related to the planning process.
The DPC actively participated in the IDP process and wrote several times to departments to share resource envelopes with different tiers of local government. DPC members also raised the question on several occasions with government authorities.
DPC members took the initiative to access and generate data related to various socio-economic indicators.
The DPC took the initiative to request gram panchayats, through media like radio, press conference, newspapers, etc, to hold gram sabhas for the preparation of annual work plans.
The DPC gave a memorandum to the Secretary, Department of Panchayati Raj regarding the difficulties and problems faced related to the IDP process.
The DPC also participated in various programmes and workshops related to IDP at the state and national levels.
A state level consultation to discuss the state of DPCs in Bihar was held.

Year/period

October 2008-March 2010

Client