The Ministry of Rural Development and Planning Commission assigned following objectives to Centre for Rural Studies:

1. Preparation and Canvassing of questionnaires on Tenancy, Land Ceiling, Land Records, Land Consolidation, Government Waste Land, Homelessness, Rural Development, including Poverty Alleviation Programmes and generation of empirical data on all these programmes by the IAS Officer Trainees during their district training.

2. Improvements in the assignments prepared by the IAS Officer Trainees during their district training on different issues pertaining to land reforms and rural development, including Poverty Alleviation Programmes and to secure statistically consistent data from them.

3. Evaluation of the progress made in (a) tenancy reforms (b) ceiling on land holdings and (c) utilisation of Govt. lands in the country and critically examine the successes claimed and the problems that have arisen in the field of implementation of the rural development programmes, and to suggest measures related to its implementation mechanism and policy.

4. The Centre for Rural Studies also involved research and training of Land Reform Management, Wage Employment, Common Property Resources, Displacement and Rehabilitation, Contemporary Agrarian Movements, Gender studies, Panchayati Raj Institutions, Poverty Alleviation Programmes etc.

5. One of the principal objectives of the Centre is to organise Village Visit Programme for the Officer Trainees during their Foundational Course the methodology of the study is provided by a set of questionnaire which constitute tools of inquiry. In 1999, it was decided by the Centre to introduce Participatory Rural Appraisal techniques for studying the socio-economic situation of the villagers. A Village Visit Handbook and a PRA technique manual was prepared by the CRS and the Officer Trainees were imparted training on the PRA techniques. The reports submitted by the Officer Trainees are, subjected to a full house presentation and scrutiny by the general body of the Officer Trainees and the faculty members of the LBSNAA.