Experiences of Development Practice

In 2012, the Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India (GoI) started a new scheme titled “Prime Minister’s Rural Development Fellowship (PMRDF) Progra­mme.” This was a three-year fellowship programme for “young professionals,” who would work with the government in the conflict-affected districts in India, which included some of the most backward and remote areas of the country. The main objectives of the programme were to provide support of these “young professionals” to the district administration in the implementation of key government programmes and schemes in these conflict-affected regions and also provide an opportunity to the country’s youth to directly engage with issues of grassroots development in these regions through the government system.

It was expected that the selected fellows would work with the district administration and local panchayati raj institutions, while not being a formal part of the bureaucracy, and provide a voice to the concerns and aspirations of the local people. The programme was executed and supervised by the government agency called the “Council for Advancement of People’s Action and Rural Technology” (CAPART) with the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) as the knowledge and implementing partner. The first batch consisted of 150 selected fellows, who were placed in 78 districts across nine states of India. The book being reviewed here seeks to document the experiences and reflections of some of these fellows from the first batch (published as Volume 1), as part of working with the government and local people in the conflict-affected districts of India.