Going against the Planning Commission?s suggestion advocating the abolition of the 600-odd District Rural Development Agency (DRDAs), which supervised anti-poverty programmes at district levels since the 1980s, the ministry of rural development has initiated a process of merging DRDAs with Zila Parishads?the elected bodies at district levels under the panchayat raj system.

Although the move was opposed by DRDAs? officials, the rural development ministry intends to allow DRDAs to function as a part of the technical support teams for Zila Parishads after the merger.

The Planning Commission has consistently stated that DRDAs should be merged with the District Planning Committees (DPCs) after the passage of the Panchayati Raj Act in 1993, since DRDAs have emerged as a ?parallel power centre? to panchayats.

?Many states have merged DRDAs with Zila Parishads and we are considering the proposal to allow the special agency to work as a technical support team, as a part of the Zila Parishad,? CP Joshi, minister for rural development, told FE. Karnataka has already merged DRDAs with Zila Parishads.

Last year, the Planning Commission had suggested that the structure of DRDAs be revamped and converted to turn them into more professional bodies and support structures to manage various anti-poverty programmes run by the rural development ministry.

According to a rural development ministry official, there had been several suggestions from various states and Union territories regarding the restructuring of DRDAs. The rural development ministry spends more than Rs 250 crore to meet the salaries and contingency expenses of these bodies. The cost of running DRDAs are met by the Centre and state governments in the ratio of 75:25.

Headed by the collector or the district magistrate, DRDAs coordinate with other departments, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and financial institutions to gather support and resources. Under the Panchayati Raj Act, these functions have been assigned to DPCs or Zila Parishads.

?It would not be very easy for the bureaucracy in DRDAs to work together with elected Zila Parishad members,? said Manoj Rai, programme head, Society for Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA), an NGO working to strengthen panchayats. Rai also said the rural development ministry does not want to let go of its control over DRDAs, thus undermining the importance of panchayats.

During the UPA-I government, minister for panchayati raj Mani Shankar Aiyar had repeatedly stated that bodies implementing anti-poverty measures such as DRDAs and units set up to implement other mega social programme such as Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, National Rural Health Mission and National Horticulture Mission (NHM), are essentially undermining the role of Panchayats.

Aiyar also urged for the abolition or merger of all development programmes in order to bring them under the supervision of panchayats, to bring about a better manner of implementation and more effective impacts.

A Planning Commission official said that there was a perception that once all DPCs were in place, DRDAs would function as parallel bodies.