Community Development Programme
Topic: Panchayati Raj: Rural Local Government · NCERT: Class 11, Ch 8 "Local Governments"
Meaning
The Community Development Programme (CDP) was India's first big rural development effort after independence. It began on 2 October 1952 with 55 projects and built on the Etawah pilot of 1948. Its aim was to get people to take part in rural development, organised through development blocks. People took little part in it, so the Balwantrai Mehta Committee was set up in 1957. That committee recommended panchayati raj.
Example
Under the CDP, each block was run by a Block Development Officer with extension officers. In practice, development was handled by officials and ordinary villagers stayed outside it. This led the Balwantrai Mehta Committee to call for "democratic decentralisation", meaning power handed to elected bodies.
Don't confuse with
- National Extension Service (1953): a companion programme that spread development work across blocks through extension officers. The CDP was the wider programme for people's participation.