ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS

This integrated approach which is the key to the development of backward areas implies a very careful environment analysis or research study of the target groups of beneficiaries, their activities and differential needs and the practical modes of operation by which their activities can be linked with the covering enterprise. Unless these studies are made meticulously, the entire planning will only give unproductive results. Most of the development schemes fail to benefit the target clientele because elaborate linkages are not identified and built up. An imaginative study should

1. Identify the beneficiaries or target groups.
2. Analyze the environment for immediate feasible enterprises in an integrated manner.
3. Delineate the linkages and institutional arrangements.
4. Recommend appropriate organizational structures to provide necessary promotional support.

Unfortunately, in most of the studies on backward areas, there is a tendency to make generalizations and ignore the specific details of feasible projects. As a result, immediate perception of concrete opportunities by interested entrepreneurs is left in confusion. Sometime! “Area studies” make a general statement of demand and resources and recommend certain enterprises, which are not immediately feasible due to important reasons unaccounted for in such studies. It is also not seriously contemplated whether the recommended enterprises are feasible within the capabilities and investment capacity of the target- group.

In short, most of the studies fail to disconcern the real issues of growth in the target area and fail to identify the concrete and specific needs of these endowments like resource skill etc. to flourish. Enunciation of general objectives, generic beneficiaries tend to blur the distinct contours of one homogeneous group from the other. Also, the extension of certain standard facilities or services does not serve their actual needs. All this possibly happens because in such basic studies we fail to identify clearly the target groups and their specific problems, and make theoretical studies on resources and demand in an impersonal manner, as a result of which even the schemes devised on the basis of such studies tend to become too impersonal and rigid.

Sometimes, the scheme become so flexible on account of a standardized petrified approach that in some most genuine cases demanding a certain departure from the fixed framework, the scheme is incapable of giving requisite help. It is therefore, absolutely necessary that any action plan for a backward area must first identify the target- group, identify the specific services they need for monitoring their enterprises and devise an appropriate structural support for comprehensive coverage of their needs.