Chapter Three

Scope and Significance of Development Administration

3.1 Scope of Development Administration

The scope of development administration is expanding day through day. Development administration
aims at bringing in relation to the political, social, economic and cultural changes through proper
planning and programming, development programmes and peoples participation. To achieve
development goals the administration constantly interacts with environment. It shapes the environment
and is also shaped through it; in this section we would briefly highlight the scope of development
administration.

a) Development Administration is Culture-Bound

There is a close link flanked by administration and culture of a country. The culture, gives an
operational framework for administration. The administration, it is said, is affected through the
political leadership that guides it and the developmental policies that it implements. It cannot easily or
rapidly break absent from the compulsion of historical legacy or the possessions of the economy or the
behavior patterns in society. Though, it does not imply that cultural system of a country is
static. Rather, both the cultural and administrative systems can change each other. The
commitment of administration to the ideology of development and change can definitely usher in
cultural change. For that purpose it should also be able to prepare appropriate plans,
programmes and projects keeping in view their feasibility, operationally and desirability. Development
administration should serve as a steering wheel that directs society to predetermined goals according to
the will and skills of the leaders and personnel occupied in the development process. It removes the lag
flanked by development necessities and administrative development.

b) Wide Spectrum of Development Programmes

The spectrum of development programmes, the central theme of development administration,

is very wide ranging from provision of industrial and infrastructural development programmes to
programmes relating to development of agriculture, health, education, communication, social services
and social reconstruction (e.g. community development, family planning etc.). Therefore development
administration covers a whole gamut of the multifaceted tasks of administration and

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management of development programmes. It may also be mentioned here that the principle of
politics-administration dichotomy cannot be accepted for the purpose of development administration as
the formulation of policies and programmes in relation to the development are intractably related to
their administration. Otherwise, for unsound and vague policies and programmes, the implementing
machinery should not be held responsible. The fact, though, is that the people blame administration
for its imperfections in or incompetence of administration in implementation of a programme. The
source of failure can be policies and plans, administration, management, leaders or people or all
taken jointly. Development administration is an effort at homogenizing all these institutions
or agencies occupied with the tasks of development into a unified system.

c) Nation-building and Social-welding

Development administration further involves the tasks of nation-building and social- welding. It is
concerned not merely with the function of creation or expansion of “growth structures,
(institution/agencies recognized to achieve development) but also to mould social behavior or
reconstruct social structures. Several a countries of the third world tend to get affected through
traditional and parochial set of social relationships based on kinship, caste, religion and region. These
parochial structures need to be broken and an era of modernization is to be inducted into the
society putting an end to the patronizing approaches of a traditional culture. Hence, the
focus of development administration is on expediting the process of industrialization, urbanization,
education and democracy. It is a recognized proposition that developmental policies should identify
and strengthen the strategic growth factors.

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 The aims of development have to be economic growth, technological advancement, equity,
justice, removal of unemployment and other social and economic troubles. The social customs or
traditions that hamper the development process have to be customized or done absent with. The
task of nation-building can only be successful if development activities bring in relation to the
social change.

d) Planning and Programming

Several countries of the world both developed and developing have opted for development
planning. This type of planning lays emphasis on the proper assessment of possessions,
determination of plan priorities, formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of plan
with an aim to achieve maximum results with minimum time and cost. Therefore development
administration comprise wide number of activities. These are all-round efforts to realize developmental
goals, provision of basic necessities, introduction of social change, reorganization of societal structures
and functions, involvement of people as the ends as well as means of development and emphasis
on planned growth. Scope of development administration is vast and varied in developing countries
like India. In fact, the very survival of the government programmes depends on the efficiency of the
development administration to implement, monitor and evaluate them. It also stresses that planning
should take note of the linkage flanked by e conomic development normative and geo-social
objectives.

In other words, plans and planning process has to relate a country’s economic needs with its
administrative and managerial capability, if they are not to be reduced to a stage of mere propaganda.
Programming is yet another significant component of development administration. Programming is
that process which throws out knowledge in relation to the gaps in information or skills needed and the
groups of people who have the necessary willingness to take initiative. People’s resistance to change,
it is whispered can be easily overcome through a proper method or improved communication
technology.

A few words here in relation to decentralized and decentralized planning are also called for.
Centralized planning may be defined as an act of working out the priorities and the pattern of
programmes and schemes as related to content, staff, finance, institutional arrangements, locations and
beneficiaries at the Central and state stages. This practice is favored in the name of administrative
efficiency, effective supervision, avoidance of wastage and uniform assessment of
performance. Though, development administrators lay emphasis on decentralized planning or what we

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call planning from below. They point out several advantages of such a development strategy. In the
first place, it is possible to adapt or adjust possessions to local needs. It can even create best use of
locally accessible natural and human possessions leading too much saving of national possessions.
Secondly, centralized planning provides a feeling of an imposed programme and policy planning
and, so, does lack in evolving commensurate enthusiasm or involvement of the local community
leading to low performance in conditions of plan-implementation. Moreover, it leads to
bureaucratization of the whole planning process, beginning from its formulation to its implementation.
Thirdly, decentralized planning helps the local administrators and communities to grow into self-
reliant, self-governing units with regard to plan formulation and mobilization of local possessions in
order to meet the demands of plan implementation. All matters of local importance may be left
to the local-self governments and local people. Initially, for this purpose, the local bodies may be
assisted both in conditions of provision of adequate funds (in case they lack them) and also
trained manpower in the area of planning. This process will introduce an element of flexibility in
administrative technology which is an underlying philosophy of development administration.
Therefore through planning and programming development goals can be realized to an adequate extent.

e) Development Administration and Ecology

Administration works under the constitutional, political and legal framework. It points out
the fact that not only the adoption of foreign know-how may be hard in a country, but also that
even the best technological assistance from abroad may not yield the desired results in the
recipient country. The socio-cultural economic and political milieu may not be ready to assimilate the
values and innovations applied in advanced countries. This reality was very well brought out
through the students of comparative administration throughout the 60s. In other words, development
administration is ecological in nature. It affects the environment approximately it and in turn is affected
through it.

Development administration, as we read in Unit 1 also, cannot survive in a vacuum, it has to change
in accordance with the changing political, economic, social and cultural scenario. It affects the
environment and is in turn affected through it. No growth model, no sophisticated technology, no
developed schemes can be planted on a developing system blindly. A system has to be ready to
receive the change. The change has to be appropriate to its circumstances.

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 f) Development Administration is Organic

Development administration, it is argued, cannot be conceived and operated as a machine

made of nuts and bolts. As development programme envelops and affects every aspect of life and
activity in society, administration for development necessity be conceived and approached as sub-culture
within a major-culture and with same responsibility to make a new culture appropriate for
the times dominated through science and technology, urbanization and material comforts.
Technology affects and is affected through administration. This approach suggests a
systematic study of development administration. Human element shapes a significant part of
development administration. Development Administration comprises human beings at all stages.
Planners seek to achieve development goals with the help of people. People’s participation is required
at the time of determination of priorities for plans, formulation of plans. The thought is to reach as
several people as possible. Therefore development administration is organic, it does not work like a
machine following set rules and regulations and working in a predictable and routine manner. Though
a proper and systematic planning process is an essential component of development administration, it
does not have to rigidly adhere to the process.

The above discussion stresses the fact that the determination and realization of
development goals to a large extent depends on a systematic planning process. In India, through the
help of Five Year Plans, we fix up plan priorities in conditions of goals to be achieved and determine the
methods and means for realizing them. The objective of planning has to be fixation of
priorities/goals, assessment of accessible possessions, augmenting scarce possessions,
determination of machinery to carry out plans and monitoring and evaluation of plans. In India, we
have the Planning Commission, National Development Council, State Planning and District Planning
Cells to undertake the task of comprehensive planning. Planning is badly needed at the grassroots stages
in order to secure people’s support.

3.2 Significance of Development Administration

We have seen in the foregoing discussion how the concept of development administration has
served as a means of comprehensive analysis of the troubles of development and the necessary
requisites to meet these challenges.

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 The emphasis on a multitude of dimensions of development and the administrative inputs
in conditions of skills, attitudes, behavior and structure required have clearly added to the
understanding of the multi-disciplinary linkages of change and development. The sub- discipline
of development administration has been able to draw the attention of the scholars of Public
Administration as well as its practitioners to the fact that the western models and concepts of Public
Administration may not be wholly applicable in the context of the countries of the third world. Since
the nature of the troubles of these countries is dissimilar from the ones in developed countries, it
requires a dissimilar set of administrative answers too.

The emphasis of development administration on ecology of administration has not only brought
to light the need for synchronization of political, economic and socio-cultural characteristics of
development, but also the vivid contextual character of development administration. It lays stress on
developing indigenous administrative means, procedures, methods and techniques to meet
multifaceted challenges thrown through the pressing demands from the „new environment‟ upon
the State. The State also has to give leadership to improve standards of societal living.

Development administration, further, calls for new perspectives, insights and understanding. It
promotes democratic spirit in administration and comprises people’s participation in the
management of developmental affairs and processes of social change as a technique. Newness in
thought, action, organization and behavior is the crux of development administration. It calls for
higher standards of group performance, inter-group collaborations and participative management. A
high degree of achievement-motivation and a continuing innovation of organization to meet
environmental change and internal needs are also called for.

The study of development administration creates it explicitly clear that politics-administration

dichotomy is a myth and in an era of expanding science and technology, knowledge explosion, the
clear functional demarcation flanked by politics and administration is neither desirable nor possible. It
may be mentioned here that development administration has served as a useful construct to
explore the dynamics of change and administration in the developing countries of the third
world. It is a fact that administration has fallen short of development aspirations. Development

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administration seeks to fill the gap flanked by developmental needs and administrative responses. It
also seeks to lay its hand on certain common themes in the area of administration and
environment of dissimilar countries. Hence, it is a move towards contributing to development
organization theory.