The 12th Five Year Plan calls for making programmes demand-driven, bottom-up and accountable. Therefore, it is important that institutional systems are strengthened and capacities developed for decentralised planning, implementation and monitoring at sub-district, district and State levels. The 11th Five Year Plan had also put strong emphasis on decentralized and outcome-based planning.

Over the last two decades, new policy space and scope for innovative work have opened up for strengthening decentralized planning and implementation. The 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendment Acts have widened the compass of functioning of rural and urban local governments. State Panchayat and Municipal Acts have expanded the powers and functions of local governments. District Planning Committees (DPCs) have been established and district planning is being practiced in several States.

A crucial factor of success of decentralised planning is knowledge and capacity development of Panchayat, Municipal, district / State government functionaries and other institutions in areas such as the following:

• Acts, rules, guidelines, etc. for functioning of institutions of decentralized planning and governance;

• Capacity development frameworks, training designs, modules and resource materials in varied communication media;

• Technical methods, tools and processes for the practice of decentralized planning;

• Good practices and learning emerging from experiments of relevant institutions.

Therefore, validation, documentation and sharing of all relevant knowledge and information are critical through interaction and communication among practitioners, researchers and other stakeholders. This NRCDDP knowledge portal seeks to support such efforts.

The NRCDDP was launched in 2012 as a part of the Government of India-United nations Joint Programme on Convergence (GoI-UNJPC). It continues to be hosted by the Planning Commission and supported by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) India.