S Guhan The purpose of this article is to evaluate the policy towards rural poverty as it finds expression in the Sixth Plan Framework (August 1980) with reference to the internal logic of the document itself and to the findings from a recently concluded field study in Tamil Nadu, It is useful to take the Plan document as a departure point for discussion, because it sets out the proposed approach of the government for 'reduction', if not 'eradication', of rural poverty. In the course of three decades of planning in India, each set of government interventions in regard to rural poverty have amounted to 'case-policies' in the same way as decisions of administrative and judicial tribunals generate case law over a period of time, In terms of this legal analogy, the Sixth Plan document can be viewed more as an instance of 'codi- fication', upon which discussion and debate could be usefully undertaken, TO gain some perspective, it might be worthwhile to recapitulate briefly the major landmarks in the evolution of Plan policies in regard to broad-based rural development The approach in the First Plan (1951-56) was based on community development as the method and rural extension as the agency. Emphasis was placed both on intensified agricultural production and on the provision of basic amenities
