Eliminating poverty requires the reduction of isolation and social exclusion. Thus
there is a need to provide access to infrastructure and services to the rural mass so that
they can build their assets, reduce vulnerability and develop sustainable livelihood. As
the factors affecting rural access are interactive and cannot be considered in isolation,
an integrated approach is most suitable for effective accessibility planning. Integrated
Rural Accessibility Planning (IRAP) is a need- based, multi-sectoral, sensitive
methodology for local level planning. It pertains to the improvement of the living and
working conditions and aims at ensuring that the available investments are directed
towards the most urgent needs of rural communities, for access to basic goods, social
and economic services and employment opportunities.
In a country like India where one of the objectives of the Central Government is to
strengthening the Local Government System (Gram Panchayat), the concept of
Integrated Rural Accessibility Planning (IRAP) can be easily incorporated into the
existing planning process, which in turn will benefit the rural community to a great
extent.
This report elucidates the study on the application of IRAP in a selected Panchayat in
Jhunjhunu District in Rajasthan (India). Being a pilot study, only three sectors,
namely, water, education and health have been considered for detailed analysis.
Simple techniques have been suggested for the use of the officials at the local
government level to rank villages based on their accessibility needs and to identify
interventions to improve the accessibility situation using participatory approach.