Managing Rural Development in the Mountain State of Sikkim, India

Abstract Rural development is a vast sector that encompasses infrastructure creation, sustainable livelihoods, and decentralized governance. Mountain landscapes, with their inherent constraints of remoteness, sensitive ecosystem, and marginality, pose unique challenges to rural development. We undertook an assessment of the evolution of development themes and rural development progress made in the mountain state of Sikkim over the past decade. We found that a rapidly growing national economy has facilitated a 4-fold rise in investment in key rural development subsectors in Sikkim over the past 5 years. This significant enhancement in financial investment, coupled with good governance and innovative policies, has ensured that human development indicators, along with social infrastructure creation, have shown impressive progress. Setting up village cluster-level support offices to strengthen governance, transforming regular programs to mission mode with great political determination by adopting a saturation approach, financing improved earthquake-resistant housing for poor households, and promoting climate change adaption measures to enhance rural water security are some of the innovative approaches that have the potential to be transferred to other mountain areas. We propose a further expansion of capacities and economic opportunities in rural areas by prioritizing the self-employment sector, by expanding the nonfarm rural economy, youth training and placement, and continuing commitment to strengthening democratic institutions and procedures to ensure more rapid and inclusive growth of the rural economy.


Managing Rural Development in the Mountain State of Sikkim, India
Experiences, Innovative Approaches, and Key Issues Sandeep Tambe 1 *, M. L. Arrawatia 2 , and Anil K. Ganeriwala 1

Introduction
The Himalayan state of Sikkim is the youngest state in the Indian union, having joined in 1975. Before that, Sikkim was a kingdom ruled by the Namgyal dynasty for over 4 centuries (Lama 2001). It is located in the eastern Himalaya and is characterized by steep mountains and deep valleys (Tambe and Rawat 2009). A prominent aspect of this region is its enormous altitudinal range. From a lowly 300 m, the terrain soars to the lofty heights of the mighty Mt Khangchendzonga at 8598 m, which results in climatic zones from the tropical to the tundra (Tambe et al 2011). The state is renowned for its natural wealth, verdant forests, floral wealth, rich biodiversity, vibrant culture, hospitable people, good governance, and calm and peaceful environs.
The rural population of Sikkim is located in the 4 districts and 165 gram panchayats (villages). The average number of households per gram panchayat is 550, with a population of 2750. According to the Census of India (2011), the total population of the state is 0.61 million, of which, the rural population accounts for 0.46 million and the urban population accounts for 0.15 million. The population grew by 12.36% for the decade 2001-2011, during which the rural population declined by 5.20% and the urban population shot up by 153.43%. The Census of India (2011) revealed that the rural population declined from 89% to 75% over the past decade (Table 1). This decline is attributed to the fact that new urban areas were carved out and existing ones were enlarged from semi-urban rural areas. This transformation of rural areas to urban ones has been facilitated by the creation of residential complexes, education hubs, and industrial estates.

Need and objectives
The developmental planning process in India is based largely on 5-year plans. The 11th five-year plan (2007-2008 to [2011][2012] is nearing completion and planning for the 12th five-year plan (2012-2013 to 2016-2017) is currently underway. The present study was necessitated while preparing for the 12th five-year plan, which required a detailed assessment of performance during the 11th plan period. Rural development is a vast sector that involves multifarious activities related to rural infrastructure, institutions of governance, and livelihood opportunities. The key subsectors are water supply, sanitation, housing, roads, wage employment, self-employment, and decentralization.
The objectives of the present article are to assess the evolving themes in rural development, analyze subsectoral progress made especially over the past decade, and MountainNotes Mountain Research and Development (MRD) An international, peer-reviewed open access journal published by the International Mountain Society (IMS) www.mrd-journal.org recommend the way forward for more inclusive and rapid growth of the rural economy. Information pertaining to physical achievements and financial investments made was obtained from the Rural Management and Development Department, Government of Sikkim. Various reliable data sets (Census of India 1991, 2001Planning Commission of India 2005DESME 2006;NSS 2010;ASER Rural 2011;FSI 2011;MOSPI 2011;RM&DD 2011;SRS 2011) and assessment reports (IIM Shillong 2009;IRMA 2010) were analyzed to quantify progress. Development constraints and priorities were assessed by organizing 3-day village consultations in all the 165 gram panchayats to prepare the 165 Village Development Action Plans in a participatory manner (VDAP 2011). Important issues that merit attention are discussed here, and development priorities for the future are detailed in the concluding section. Other mountain states can thus identify ideas and lessons learned that have a potential to be transferred to their local context. N It is among the steepest landscapes globally, as the width of the Himalaya across its 3000 km length is narrowest (80 km) in Sikkim (Schaller 1977).
N It is remotely located in the northeastern part of the country, with no air or rail connectivity within a radius of 100 km from the state capital. During the monsoons, fragile roadways often close down due to landslides. N There is an acute scarcity of land for development, because 82% of the geographical area is classified as forestland (FSI 2011), diversion of which for nonforestry purposes is restricted under federal legislation. N It is located in seismic zone IV of the earthquake hazard map of India, which is a high damage risk zone. It was hit by a devastating 6.9 magnitude earthquake on 18 September 2011, which resulted in widespread damage to public and private property.
N Fragile terrain, weak geology, and heavy rainfall make the state prone to frequent natural calamities and prevent intensive exploitation of natural resources. This heavy rainfall is concentrated in 5 months, which leads to a compressed working season of 5 to 6 months.

Evolving themes in rural development
Sikkim merged with the Indian Union in 1975, and, during the initial phase of development, the focus was on essential infrastructure, such as roads, electrification, and water supply ( Figure 1). Interventions in agricultural expansion, mineral extraction, and forest clearing also were initiated, which affect the landscape and the environment. The complexity of the mountain terrain was not adequately considered, and development not suited to the local environment was undertaken (Karan 1987). Open grazing in the forests was not regulated, and this led to fragmentation of wildlife habitats. The development of sustainable income-generating industries such as tourism was not given adequate emphasis and consequently internal revenue generation suffered. Most of the planning was top down, and empowerment of the people through strengthening of Panchayati Raj institutions was not pursued vigorously. The lack of strong propeople and pro-environment policies resulted in poverty levels of 40% coupled with degradation of the environment (Bhasin et al 1984;Karan 1987). However, over the past decade, the state has adopted a unique developmental model with a pro-environment and pro-people perspective. It is the stated policy of the government to develop rural areas on a par with towns and cities by providing all basic amenities and employment opportunities, with a vision to develop an ecocity state (RM&DD 2011).

Progress in rural development
Thanks to a rapidly growing national economy, the Indian Government now has substantial financial resources at its disposal. Total investment in the 6 key subsectors of rural connectivity, rural water security, decentralization, wage employment, self-employment, and housing has been rising, and priorities have also been evolving. In Sikkim, over the past 5 years (11th plan period), there has been a 4-fold rise in investment in key areas of rural development (  [2011][2012] (    Tambe et al 2011). Hence, to ensure sustainability, water storage structures at the household, community, and village level are being created (Figure 2). These structures help to store unused flowing spring water at nighttime and improve daytime water availability. Also, an integrated program with the title Dhara Vikas or ''Springshed Development'' has been launched to recharge the aquifers and thus revive springs, streams, and hill-top lakes by developing their catchment by using rainwater harvesting, watershed, and springshed approaches. Sanitation was universalized with 100% coverage of household toilets by transforming an ongoing routine development program into mission mode by adopting a saturation approach with time-bound targets.
Furthering decentralization by intensively managing development: Decentralization has been firmly anchored by providing adequate funds, functions, and functionaries at the local level. The state has a 2-tier system of local governance in rural areas: the gram panchayat, or elected government at the village level, and the zilla panchayat, or elected government at the district level. The varied development profiles of the villages, coupled with their diverse needs and aspirations and remote location, make decentralization imperative for need-based development. To meet this objective, Block administrative centers have been recently established to provide administrative, accounting, and technical support to a cluster of gram panchayats (Figure 3). These centers function as support offices for clusters of 5 to 6 gram panchayats with a population of 15,000. A block administrative center is manned by officers from the administration, accounting, engineering, forestry, FIGURE 2 Climate change adaptation measures to strengthen the water storage infrastructure at household, community, and village levels have helped enhance rural water security and endure frequent winter droughts. Household level water storage tanks with a capacity of 10,000 L were constructed with funding support from the MGNREGA wage employment program. (Photo by Sandeep Tambe Earthquake resistant rural housing: The traditional house design in rural areas is a 2-story timber-bamboo (ekra) frame structure with a corrugated galvanized iron sheet roof on load-bearing stone masonry walls of mud mortar. In the past, under the rural housing assistance program, nominal subsidies and corrugated galvanized iron sheets were provided extensively. During the devastating earthquake of 6.9 magnitude on 18 September 2011, although half of the rural houses in the state had various degrees of damage, in these houses, few casualties were registered, which highlights their inherent earthquakesafe character. Although the upper story, which consists of a timber-bamboo (ekra) frame structure with a light iron-sheet roof, was found to be mostly intact, the ground story, random stone masonry walls of mud mortar, fared poorly. The rural housing program has now been improved and integrated under the Chief Minister's Rural Housing Mission with the aim of attaining a ''katcha (temporary) house free status'' by 2013. This program will also ensure that the poor in mountain areas have access to improved and safe housing. They will also be able to use their life savings for educating their children, for health care, and for strengthening their livelihood (Figure 4). The innovative elements of this program are N Single-story earthquake-resistant reinforced concrete frame structures with columns and tie beams with a 605 square-foot plinth area and construction in owner-driven mode.
N A saturation approach obtained by converting existing 6000 katcha houses to pucca (temporary to permanent).  Transforming a wage employment program into a movement: The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), a National Flagship Program (www.nrega.nic.in), is a guaranteed wage employment program. In 2011 in Sikkim, it provided 85 days of wage employment (compared with the national average of 47) for 60% of the rural households. This program was able to strengthen the livelihood sector by investing in durable livelihood assets such as minor irrigation channels, flood control and anti-erosion works, water source development, horticulture, fodder and forestry plantations, and terracing of barren land. The scheme has stringent transparency safeguards, with universal coverage by independent and quality social audits.
Although the guidelines permit 50% of the implementation to be taken up by line departments, the state government in Sikkim devolved 100% of the implementation to gram panchayats. This helped in making the administration of this program people centered and also ensured wide outreach. Hence, the scheme took the form of a community-led social movement with broad participation. Participation by women who may not want to venture far from their homes was encouraged by starting microworks nearby. The findings of independent impact assessment studies indicate that this additional income earned by mothers is being used to purchase better food, clothes, and household items, for health care, and for quality education of their children (IIM Shillong 2009; IRMA 2010).

Major achievements in rural development
Sikkim is rapidly catching up with the best-performing states and has  N Amidst this rapid development, forest and tree cover increased from 44.09% in 1997 to 47.59% in 2011, which is nearly double the national forest cover of 23.81% (FSI 2011). This was despite vast alpine and snow-bound areas above the tree line, which do not support tree growth. Moreover, the protected area coverage under sanctuary and national parks has risen to 31%, which is highest in the country and far above the national coverage of 5% (FSI 2011).

Key issues in rural development
The following issues in the rural development sector require urgent attention.  (Table 1). These constraints of land, water, technology, and market linkages have resulted in a decline in the contribution of the agriculture sector (17%) to the gross state domestic product (GSDP), which is an area of concern, because 65% of the state's population is still dependent on agriculture and related activities (Table 1). There are several reasons for this, such as lack of access to irrigation, decline in production and productivity of cash crops (ginger, orange, and large cardamom), fragmentation of landholdings, the declining nutrient status of soils, increasing impacts of climate change, weak marketing linkages, rising input costs, and shortage of cheap labor (RM&DD 2011;Tambe et al 2011;VDAP 2011).

Potential of rural nonfarm economy
With enabling infrastructure such as better roads, telecommunication facilities, access to formal banking services, and more urbanized centers, this sector has enormous potential to fuel the rural economy. In the future, rural incomes will increasingly become multioccupational and multilocational. Remittances from the young work force geographically located outside the village will also play a significant part (Ashley and Maxell 2001;Ellis and Biggs 2001). Transport and construction are 2 sectors, along with MGNREGA, that contribute significantly to off-farm rural incomes. Nearly 60% of the rural households are participating in the MGNREGA program in rural areas, earning additional annual off-season incomes of nearly INR 10,000 (US% 189) per household.

Poverty pathways in a rural economy
Poverty is inherently dynamic and is the net result of escapes from and descents of households into poverty (Krishna 2006). Poverty eradication requires actively accelerating escapes and blocking descents. Analyzing the reasons for escape and descent help in policy planning, because the escape pathways can then be broadened and the pathways for descent narrowed (Krishna 2006 However, it is possible in particular to distinguish peri-urban, middle, and remote areas (Ashley and Maxell 2001). The various parameters used and their indicators, along with sources of information, are shown in Table 4. Spatially disaggretated maps that highlight this diversity are provided in Figure 5. Comparison between development progress in the remote village of Karzi-Mangnam in West Sikkim with Rawatey-Rumtek at the outskirts of the state capital of Gantok reveals this stricking contrast. Karzi-Mangnam was found to have a large average family size (7), rainfed farming was the sole source of livelihood, the educational level was low (1% have gone beyond the tenth class), the poverty rate was high (82%), and road connectivity was poor. Comparatively, Rawatey-Rumtek, a semiurban village, was found to have a smaller average family size (5), diversified livelihood opportunities, good irrigation facilities, and also good connectivity to the Gangtok urban center. The population dependent on farming (61%) was much lower here, the poverty rate also was much lower (8%), and the level of education (25% beyond the tenth class) was much higher (Census of India 2001; DESME 2006).

Applicability of centralized criteria
Concerns have been raised about the ''invisibility'' of mountain states in national policy, possibly because they are considered too sparsely populated to be of political importance (Browne et al 2004). Most of the national programs have uniform centralized guidelines that sometimes do not fit perfectly in the local context of Sikkim. Concentration of scheduled caste and scheduled tribal populations is commonly used as a surrogate indicator to measure economic underdevelopment in India (Planning Commission of India 2005). The concentration of scheduled castes and tribes is highest at 85% for the North district, whereas it is 51% for West district, 41% for the East district, and 37% for the South district (DESME 2006). Consequently, the North district Often schemes are divided equally among all the elected representatives geographically, which results in a number of micro-developmental schemes, thereby limiting the opportunity to initiate larger needbased interventions with more visible outcomes.

Impact assessment and sustainability
Rapid economic development sometimes results in unique socioeconomic and environmental problems. There is a need to undertake impact assessment studies, especially in rural areas to ascertain such impacts. Also, this fast-track development has been largely funded by federal schemes. Hence, sustainability of this development model is dependent on sustained financial support from the federal government. Although a number of capacity building programs are underway, to strengthen the selfsustainability of this growth, greater and more focused emphasis is needed on entrepreneurship, skill development and capacity building for self-sustaining income generation activities.

Conclusions
Rural development has been central to developmental thinking in the state. Over the past decade, the state has made significant achievements in attaining human development and creating extensive rural infrastructure. Now, as detailed above, there is a need to prioritize rural livelihoods and the rural economy to accelerate economic development in rural areas ( Figure 1). We propose further expansion of capacities and economic opportunities in rural areas by expanding the nonfarm rural economy, skill development and placement for youth, strengthening self-employment, and continued commitment to fostering democracy for more rapid and more inclusive growth of the rural economy.
Over the past decade, despite formidable mountain-specific constraints, the state has been able to transform its rural areas. Sizeable enhancement in financial investment, good governance, and innovative policies have resulted in this significant improvement in human development and nearuniversal access to basic amenities, such as roads, bridges, electricity, toilets, housing, and sanitation. These good governance and innovative approaches have the potential to be transferred to other mountain areas with local customization, which can occur, first, by furthering decentralization by intensively managing development made possible by establishing gram panchayat cluster-level support offices to strengthen governance and last mile delivery. Second, the saturation approach adopted to achieve universal coverage of sanitation and recently permanent housing has helped to transform ongoing routine development programs into mission mode, with time-bound targets and has garnered political will as well. Third, financing earthquakeresistant, improved houses for the poor households can be provided. Fourth, the climate change adaptation measures initiated to revive springs, streams, and lakes, and strengthen the water storage infrastructure at household, community, and village level have helped enhance rural water security.