District Planning in India - District Plan

District Plan

The final stage is the preparation of the district plan. This will be finalized after the Block Plans are finalized in the same way as the Block Plan is finalized on the basis of the GP Plans in the Block. The schemes that will not figure in the Block Plans, but are essential for the development of the district will be identified at this stage. Further, an attempt will have to be made to achieve functional and spatial integration and use the norms for the provision of social infrastructure. The above five steps will help in the preparation of the perspective plan. To work out the annual plans, the financial resources available have to be taken into account. The local government component of the District Plan would emerge out of the resource envelope containing the following sources of funds:

• Own resources available for development
• Transfers by State Finance Commission for development purposes
• Twelfth Finance Commission grants passed on by the State Government
• Untied grants for local planning
• Grants in respect of Centrally Sponsored Schemes.
• Grants for State Plan schemes assigned for implementation through local Governments
• Grants for externally supported schemes assigned for implementation through local governments
• Estimated contribution by the communities themselves

The document that embodies this statement of resources and their allocation for various purposes is known as the District Plan. It would essentially have three aspects namely.

1. Plan to be prepared by the Rural Local Bodies for the activities assigned to them and the national / state schemes implemented by them with their own resources and those earmarked for these purposes;
2. Plan to be prepared by the Urban Local Bodies for the activities assigned to them and the national / state schemes implemented by them with their own resources and those earmarked for these purposes;
3. Physical integration of the plans of Rural and Urban Local Bodies with the elements of the State Plan that are physically implemented within the geographical confines of the district.