What do you understand by micro-planning? Discuss the processes of micro-planning in India.

 Micro-planning is a crucial aspect of development. The term micro-planning is used in many different ways and in vastly divergent contexts. In fact, the term micro-planning remains rather vague unless the actual level of planning is defined. Nowadays, a more fashionable term “area planning” is often employed as a synonym of micro-planning. In essence, the term micro-planning implies multi-level and decentralised planning approach to the overall development of a country.

Micro-planning is essentially a spatial development planning which tends to utilise all kinds of available resources – natural, human and others to the fullest extent. It attempts to distribute the fruits of development among regions and social groups within the region, which can minimise the socio-economic imbalances and improve the living conditions of the masses.

In other words, micro-planning is concerned with the ordering of human activities for socio-economic transformation in “supra-local space” in an agriculture based rural economy as against supra-urban space for an urban dominated economy. In India, the concept of micro- planning has emerged in order to maintain a balance in “planning and development” between national priorities and local needs.

Micro-planning as a development strategy got some importance out of a realisation that general planning done at the national level does not automatically ensure its applicability at local levels, for each area has its own personality, potentiality and needs. A successful plan, therefore, must be sensitive to these micro-level variations, while taking into account the limitations posed by national priorities, resources and investment of funds.

Since the very beginning of Indian planning emphasis has been given on promoting a better standard of living of the people by efficient exploitation of resources of the country, increasing production and offering opportunities to all for employment in the services of the community within an ideology deeply rooted in the concept of democracy and socialism. For achieving these objectives, special significance has been laid on the welfare of the rural areas and the weaker/backward sections.

But in reality, a larger share of the benefits has been appropriated by some privileged/forward classes as well as a few economically developed/advanced regions of the country. That has resulted in mass rural poverty, unemployment and underemployment, and social tension particularly among the weaker sections of rural population, and ultimately brought into being regional disparity and sectoral imbalances. The first two Five- Year Plans of India made no effort in the direction of micro-level or regional planning and development.

During the Third Plan, the regional focus in planning became more explicit and for the first time, it gave a serious thought over the problems of regional development. But due to lack of proper national policy with regard to spatial dimensions of planning, the micro-level regional approach to development could not be initiated in the actual planning strategy.

The Fourth Five-Year Plan (1969-74), however, noted that certain regions in the country are advancing at the cost of others and that certain sections of the population who already have some resources are prospering, while an overwhelming proportion of the population has generally remained outside the mainstream of economic progress.

In order to correct some of these regional imbalances, it had emphasised the need for ‘micro’ planning (district level) on the assumption that plans made at the national and state levels can be brought down to the people of more lower levels in a much more efficient manner. So the Fourth Plan put considerable importance to planning at the district level and to experimental studies on ‘growth centres’ for evolving an appropriate micro- planning strategy at the grassroot level.

The Fourth Plan, in fact, marked a watershed in Indian Planning by emphasising the need to strengthen regional development through some kind of micro- planning. For the first time in Indian planning, it stressed upon the necessity to strengthen micro- planning at district and lower levels. The Fourth Plan initiated micro/regional planning from the grassroots under the name of area development taking due note of regional resource potentialities and limitations.

It was strongly felt by the planners and policy-makers that the planning exercise at the macro (nation/state) levels cannot take into account the local variations in resources and needs. Hence, an area development framework drawn up at the district and block levels was considered to be more realistic than one formulated at the state level. Therefore, for micro-level regional planning, initially, district was selected as a planning unit.

With the aim to accelerate development of backward areas and to reduce regional disparities in socio­economic advancement, the concept of integrated area development had emerged for sustained development of the targeted ‘area’. Various models like growth centres, growth poles, service centres, central place, etc., had been advanced during the Fourth and Fifth Plans to serve the hinterlands of backward and tribal areas taking into consideration the economic base and population potential of that area.

Integrated area development thus referred to the appropriate location of social and economic activities over a physical space for the balanced development of a particular region. The concept of integrated area development therefore offered a new framework for decentralising economic and social activities by locating specific functions in appropriate places.

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