The Council for Advancement of People’s Action and Rural Technology (CAPART)

Council for Advancement of People’s Action and Rural Technology (CAPART) was launched in 1986. It works as a nodal agency for catalyzing and coordinating the emerging partnership between voluntary organizations and the Government for sustainable development of rural areas. The scheme was formed at that time by merging CART and PADI which refer to Council for Advancement of Rural Technology and People’s Action for Development India respectively.  CAPART is an autonomous body registered under the Societies Registration Act 1860. It is chaired by the Union Minister for Rural Development.

Major Issues with CAPART

• In last 30 years, CAPART had been dogged by controversies over corruption, lack of accountability, lack of understanding of voluntary action and its context, and an inability to move fast enough to innovate.
• The major problem is that functioning of CAPART is not transparent and majority of the voluntary organizations funded by it failed to deliver properly. Some of the NGOs even did not exist.
• In recent years, CAPART has been under scanner for mismanagement and doling out money to non-existing NGOs. CAPART has been slammed by critics as a “white elephant”.
• Nearly 1000 NGOs have allegedly looted the wealth of CAPART and some of them have been blacklisted. There are cases of fraud also in various police stations across the country.

Thus, CAPART, which was once claimed to be a major promoter of rural development in the country, assisting over 12,000 voluntary organizations in implementing a wide range of development initiatives; was slated to be disbanded by the end of UPA-II term. The current government had talked of reviving CAPART but no substantial progress has been made so far.

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