The District Rural Development Agencies (DRDA) and its more than 500 project directors are scheduled to get a lesson from the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today. The PM is expected to teach them to concentrate hard on the slowing process of the upliftment of rural population.

The reality is something different from the plans on the paper.

The nodal agencies in the districts are in bad shape and they are unable to continue and introduce the rural development programs. There are not as much staffs as needed to fulfill the commitments.

Almost forty-three per cent lower level positions are vacant throughout the country. The statistics goes to 70 per cent in the case of decision-making posts.

Some 67 per cent posts are vacant in Punjab DRDAs. On the other hand, mere 13 per cent posts are vacant in Orissa. In ten states more than 50 per cent positions are vacant. Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Orissa and Manipur have less than 30 per cent vacancy in their DRDAs.

Interesting part of the story is the higher positions are understaffed and lower positions are overstaffed in almost every state.

The decision makiking positions are vacant and because of that, the programs are not running well in those areas.

The Poverty-eradication program is, itself, facing the lack of administrative efficiency and shortage of competent senior staffs.

The Indian Express has reported that the Ministry of rural development has asked state governments to take suitable steps in this matter.

The Ministry has given state governments power to recruit DRDA posts by making amendments in the guidelines.

However, the state governments have showed less interest and doing nothing to work for poverty eradication in their respective states.

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