Functioning of Panchayati Raj Institutions: An Evaluation with the Perspective of Beneficiaries of Haryana State

Abstract

The major objective of establishing Panchayati Raj System in India was to carry out developmental activities to improve the living condition of the rural people with their active participation. But due to the lack of peoples’ participation, functioning of PRIs has always been under observation as the core objective has not been achieved yet. This study has been undertaken to evaluate the effectiveness of the functioning of PRIs in the State of Haryana. For this purpose, a structured questionnaire with 32 statements was prepared and administered to the beneficiaries selected using multi-stage purposive sampling. A total of 600 respondents were contacted to get their opinion, but only 411 were found suitable for analysis. The data were subjected to various statistical analysis such as: factor analysis, ANOVA and t-test. During rotation, and by using factor analysis, 32 statements were reduced to 9 dimensions which were renamed as per the nature of the items included and were taken as independent variables. The 33rd statement of the questionnaire was taken as dependent variable (rural transformation). The results show that the functioning of the PRIs differs across the districts of study and are not as expected by the beneficiaries.