Slow Progress of Decentralized Economic Planning in India (7 Causes)

Some of the major causes of slow progress of decentralized economic planning in India are as follows:

1. Unsuccessful Land Reforms:

The success of decentralized planning depends much on the implementation of land reforms viz. imposition of land ceiling and the redistribution of surplus lands, tenancy reforms, consolidation of holding etc.

Under the semi-feudal conditions, land reforms could not be carried on in a true spirit. The Panchayati Raj institutions are dominated by personal interests who failed to show much interest in the implementation of beneficiary oriented programme in rural areas of the country.

2. Lack of proper Administrative bodies:

In India decentralized planning could not achieve much success on account of adequate administrative bodies in the local level. Till today various state governments failed to develop proper administrative bodies at the district and block level representing the local people.

3. Lack of adequate Resource Transfer:

The Govt. machinery is not up to the mark to meet the modalities of decentralized planning. It faces the problem of sufficient resources at their disposal.

4. Regional disparities:

Various states of India who adopted decentralized planning could not make much head way in reducing regional disparities and poverty. Among the various states, disparities has been found in Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttarkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Northern part of West Bengal etc. This has raised a disincentive factor against the popularity of decentralized planning among the non-implementing states.

5. Ad-hocism:

Generally, state government are following the path of adhocism. Regular elections of village Panchayats and other local bodies are not being held. Thus, the decentralized planning has not become effective. As a result, it failed to become a powerful instrument of social change in the country.

6. Absence of Effective Organisation:

In the absence of effective organisation of marginal and small farmers, agricultural labourers, artisans, scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and other backward sections, there is lack of representation in the local bodies for serving their economic interests.

7. Use of Inferior Resources:

In the rural area, superior resources are under the effective control of elite section of rural society. Similarly, productive resources like forests, minerals etc. are under the control of rich. Urban-located groups having adequate financial resources. Under these circumstances, decentralized planning machinery has been dealing with inferior type of resources having low potential return factor.