Organizational Designs for Technology Oriented Integrated Rural Development

This paper discusses organizational designs for rural development with special reference to farm-industry linkages and integration of agrarian economy and industrial economy. Indian agriculture is predominantly small farm agriculture and increasingly going to be so in future. Over the years increasing automistion of Indian agriculture has resulted in decrease in the unit of management of land. On the other hand, there is lack of integrating institutions and organizational arrangements for optimum use of land and water resources and agricultural produce. Increasing atomisation correspondingly increases managerial and administrative efforts and costs of providing each of the literally millions of small and marginal farmers with knowledge of modern agricultural practices credit and inputs, and procurement and/or marketing of his produce, and also providing other income generating activities and welfare facilities. In the absence of integrative mechanisms, even the multiple institutional arrangements and programme administrators have not been able to cope with these tasks satisfactorily. Effective and efficient monitoring of all these activities was also practically unmanageable. To overcome these problems, designs of future organizations for technology oriented integrated rural development have to be such that these (a) respond to new technologies and process of industrialisation, (b) provide various economic and welfare benefits in an integrated manner, and (c) make optimum use of land and water resources and of produce from these. Also these organizations should be sufficiently sensitive to planning, monitoring and control by higher levels of administration. In the past Nilokheri cooperative factories and FSCS were designed on integrative principle. These indicate importance of a dynamic, anchor activity around which organizations for integrated agriculture/rural development should be evolved. In case of sugar and milk cooperatives, the central or anchor activity was modern processing industry around which all other activities/tasks were organized. Their success was due to strength of the anchor activity. The lesson is: wherever possible, depending upon the available local agricultural and other natural resources, bio-mass handling/processing industry/activity should be the central or anchor activity of organizations for integrated rural development. Potential for developing such anchor activities is very high in India. The paper discusses concept of integration and anchor activity, potential for developing anchor activities, and various socio-polictical and economic implications of integrative organizations based on far-industry linkage concept.