Community Development
The Community Development domain covers the meaning of community, development indicators, government and NGO programmes, and decentralised governance. Kerala examples - Kudumbashree, the People's Plan Campaign - are common.
Concepts
A community is a group sharing locality, interests or identity. Community development is a planned, participatory process improving living standards through local initiative and outside support; it is voluntary, needs-based and two-way.
Indicators
Literacy, infant and maternal mortality, life expectancy, sex ratio, per capita income, Human Development Index (health, education, income). Kerala's high literacy and low infant mortality are classic examples despite low per capita income.
Programmes
MGNREGA (100 days' guaranteed wage employment per rural household), National Rural Livelihood Mission, ICDS, Ayushman Bharat, Swachh Bharat Mission, PM POSHAN, PMAY. Kudumbashree's neighbourhood groups and micro-enterprises are Kerala's poverty-reduction model.
Panchayati Raj
73rd Constitutional Amendment, 1992: three tiers - gram panchayat, block panchayat, district panchayat - with the gram sabha at the base and 29 subjects devolved.
Worked example. A village has high unemployment and poor sanitation. Match MGNREGA and Swachh Bharat to the two problems, involve the gram sabha, and set indicators (days of employment generated, households with toilets) rather than vague "awareness".
Traps. HDI is health, education and income only - not infrastructure; MGNREGA is employment, not housing; and community development must be participatory, not imposed.