Concurrent Evaluation of IRDP

Concurrent Evaluation of IRDP G Thimmaiah IN his article Concurrent Evaluation of IRDP', A P Saxena (September 26,1987) has evaluated the concurrent evaluation of IRDP conducted by the DRD of the union government. He believes that ex post evaluation does not provide for remedial measures and mid-course corrections in the programme and, therefore, he prefers concurrent evaluation for improving the effectiveness of implementation. But he has not explained as to what extent the concurrent evaluation sponsored by the DRD has helped the DRD in effecting mid-course corrections. It may be of interest to mention in this context that the ISEC, Bangalore, was one of the institutions chosen by DRD for undertaking this concurrent evaluation in about 10 districts of Karnataka. We have been passing on the information collected through the coded schedules to the government of Karnataka and also to the DRD, union government. But, we do not know either from their annual reports or from any other published document to what extent they have used the findings of the concurrent evaluation for introducing mid-course corrections wherever found necessary. Saxena has not bothered to examine this aspect.