The Constitution of India aims at establishing a sovereign socialist secular democratic republic in India so as to secure to all its citizens, inter alia, social, economic and political justice.An added feature is that the ideal of social welfare state is sought to be translated into  practice through state planning of economic  resources with a view to create a socialistic pattern of society which involves improving the economic  conditions of the people keeping in view the demands of social justice.

 The greatest challenge that the Government of India has been facing since independence is the proper provision of social justice to the weaker sections, by ameliorating their socio-economic conditions. Scheduled Tribes, Scheduled Castes and denotified tribes constitute the weakest section of India's population, from the ecological, economic and educational angles. They constitute the matrix of India's poverty.

Despite fast economic growth India continues to face massive social and economic inequality, high unemployment and widespread malnourished children.

Rural development is the crux of India’s development strategy as an overwhelming majority of India’s population lives in villages. Rural development programmes are designed to facilitate a multi-faceted growth of the rural poor by extending the benefits of development to them.

 The Government has initiated a number of programmes to solve the chronic problems facing villages in India. Soon after independence, efforts to improve the rural economy were initiated.

Community Development Programme (CDP) launched in 1952 was first nationwide project & major philosophy behind it was the induction of people in local development action aimed at the utilization of locally available resources.

In 1953, government launched National Extension Services (NES) on similar lines. Although both the CDP & the NES were administered in a planned manner, these programmes suffered from under-achievement. These schemes did not cater to the poor alone but were concerned with the welfare of the whole rural population.

Balwant Rai Mehta Committee (1957) was set up to diagnose the maladies & suggest remedies. It suggested the formation of a three-tier system of rural local government to be called Panchayati Raj.

Side by side, the government was also launching several other programmes to improve the rural economy. With the purpose of making the country self-reliant in the field of agricultural products, the Intensive Agricultural District Programme (IADP, 1960)& the Intensive Agriculture Area Programme (IAAP, 1964) were put into action.

In the early stages, rural development programmes were virtually synonymous with agricultural development especially till the Green Revolution in the late 1960s.

In the seventies, however, it came to be realized that rural development is much broader in scope than merely agricultural development. Therefore, if the strategy for rural development had to be made effective, a multi-pronged approach to rural development was imperative.

The Fifth & Sixth Plan attached great importance to self-reliance, generation of employment & removal of poverty.

Next, the government launched the Drought Prone Area Programme (DPAP, 1972).Its objective being reducing the impact of the incidence of drought & to stress soil conservation & afforestation in drought-prone areas.

In 1974, the Command Area Development Programme (CAD) was taken up to develop the command areas of the irrigation projects. The last link in these programmes is the Desert Development Programme (DDP, 1977) which dealt with afforestation, sand stabilization, agricultural development & rural electrification.

A major problem in rural areas is of seasonal unemployment & underemployment. With the aim of providing supplementary employment opportunities besides agriculture, the National Rural Employment Programme (NREP) was launched in 1980.

Despite the fact that NREP had been launched, it was felt that there was a need to tackle the problem of rural unemployment in a more direct & specific manner, particularly during the lean agricultural periods when work was scarce. Hence, the Rural Landless Employment Guarantee Programme (RLEGP) was launched in 1983.

Considering the low effectiveness of the existing programmes for employment generation in the alleviation of poverty, renewed thinking on this plank had become inevitable. As a restructuring device, NREP & RLEGP were merged into the Jawahar Rozgar Yojana (JRY, 1989). Its primary objective was generation of additional gainful employment for the unemployed & underemployed in the rural areas.

Poverty   reduction   has   been   an important goal of development policy since the inception of planning in India. Hence, the Government of India introduced the Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP) in the annual budget of 1978-79 with the specific intention of eliminating rural poverty.

IRDP was not restricted to agricultural development alone. Its main purpose was to open the eyes of the villager to the fact that there are other avenues open besides agriculture. Herein, lies the difference b/w IRDP & its predecessor programmes.

During 1988-89, Million Wells Scheme as sub-scheme of RLEGP was launched for the construction of irrigation wells for small & marginal farmers belonging to the SC/ST who were below poverty line.

In April 1999, IRDP & allied programmes, along with Million Wells Scheme was restructured into single self-employment programme called Swarnajayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY) with primary objectives of focused approach to poverty alleviation.

The objective of SGSY was to provide sustainable income to the rural poor. The programme aimed at establishing a large number of micro-enterprises in the rural areas, based upon the potential of the rural poor.

 The Eleventh Five-Year Plan advocated faster and more inclusive growth clearly reflecting the need to find a reasonable balance between growth and inclusion. The Eleventh Plan defined inclusive growth to be a growth process that yields broad-based benefits and ensures equality of opportunity for all.

Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act was enacted as a law in the Parliament in 2005 to guarantee a minimum of 100 days manual labour to the rural people which have played a pivotal role in addressing the rural poverty.

Thus, there have been two broad types of rural development programmes- those which are concerned with area development & those which are targeted at specific beneficiary groups.

The beneficiary group oriented programmes may aim only at employment generation (NREP, JRY) or at poverty-alleviation (Antyodaya) or at poverty-alleviation linked to social change (DWACRA).

The area development programmes are area development oriented; land-water management & infrastructural development are their key priorities (DPAP, DDP).

Rural development programmes can also be categorized into production oriented programmes like IAAP/IADP & programmes which have objectives like equity, infrastructure & area development or institution building.

The various programmes which were directly or indirectly designed for the amelioration of the socio-economic conditions of the rural population can be summarized as :