Balwant Rai Mehta, 1957

Balwant Rai Mehta Committee was established in 1957 to study the reasons for poor performance of Community Development Programme (CDP) and National Extension Services (NES). As per the report of the committee, the programmes failed to evoke proper participation of people.

• The committee suggested the creation of statutorily elected body with sufficient resources for the community development and suggested that Panchayats be endowed with such powers deemed necessary.
• The committee recommended new structure for the Panchayats: A three tier Panchayati Raj institutions, namely, Gram Panchayat at the village level, Panchayat Samiti at the block level and Zila Parishad at the district level.
• In January 1958 the recommendations of this committee were approved by the Parliament and the New Panchayati Raj system started with enthusiasm and high hopes.
• All states introduced the PRIs with slight variations to accommodate their local circumstances. Based on the recommendations of the Balwant Rai Mehta Committee, Panchayati Raj was launched on 2nd October 1959 in Nagaur district of Rajasthan Statistics. In the same year Andhra Pradesh also introduced the system. Soon after, many states established Panchayati Raj Institution (PRIs).
• For few years, the experiment seemed to be successful but soon problems aroused.