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Rural development – what are the possibilities?..


Although policy makers and the development community have widely used the phrase “rural development”, what constitutes rural development seems to have changed significantly overtimes.

Until the 1970s, rural development was synonymous with agricultural development and hence focused on increasing agricultural production. This focus seems to have been driven primarily by the interest of industrialization to extract surpluses from the agriculture sector to reinforce industrialization.

In more recent years increased concerns on the environmental’ aspects of economic growth have also influenced the changes. Today’s concept of rural development is fundamentally different from that used about three or four decades ago.

Today, there seems to be a universal consensus that the ultimate objective of rural development is to improve the quality of life of rural people. This makes it essential to go beyond the income-related factors such as prices, production, and productivity to a range of non- income factors that influence quality of life and hence inclusiveness of rural development.”

Inclusive rural development is more specific concept than the concept of rural development. In broader terms, inclusive rural development is about improving the quality of life of all members of rural society. More specifically, inclusive rural development covers three different but interrelated dimensions.

1. Economic dimension

2. Social dimension

3. Political dimension

Objectives of Rural Development:

Following are the primary objectives of rural development:

1. To improve the living standards by providing food, shelter, clothing, employment and education.

2. To Increase productivity in rural areas and reduce poverty.

3. To involve people in planning and development through their participation in decision making and through centralization of administration.

4. To ensure distributive Justice and equalization of opportunities in the society.

Strategies in Rural Development:

A strategy consists of an ordering of various policy parameters to attain the desired goals. Different strategies emphasize and give importance to different mixes of agrarian relations, techniques of production and state policies in order to achieve the goals of rural development.

To illustrate some of the relevant issues, there air various types of rural development strategies.

1. A strategy based on collectivization of resources.

2. A strategy based on regulated capitalist perspective.

3. A strategy based on peasant agrarian perspective.

4. A strategy based on Laissez-Faire or un-regulated free market capitalist perspective.

Scope and Importance of Rural Development

1. about three-fourth of India's population live in rural areas,

2. nearly half of the country's national income is derived from agriculture,

3. around seventy per cent of Indian population get employment through agriculture,

4. bulk of raw materials for industries come from agriculture and rural sector,

5. increase in industrial population can be justified only in rural populations' motivation and increasing the purchasing power to buy industrial goods.

Need for rural development in India

The rural economy is an example of an agrarian economy. although framing and Agriculture are one of the most important primary activities. The problem lies in the fact that they share in the GDP of the agriculture sector in on a constant decline. at the same time, about two- thirds of India’s population depends on agriculture. as a result, the productivity is not up to the mark, with conditions only getting worse.

Moreover, public investment declined since 1991 coupled with a lack of adequate infrastructure, credit, transport, employment, etc. henceforth the agricultural output has grown at only 3.2 % during 2007-11. all these factors have been denting the process of development. therefore there is a need to focus on rural development and not just Urban Development.

Summary:

Rural areas are sometimes associated with high levels or pockets of deprivation and social exclusion. difficulties with access, low levels of service provision, isolation, higher cost and lack of choice or quality all contribute to health and social care.

Many of the difficulties associated with the planning and provision of rural social care and faced by other services, most notably Health. Joint approaches and shared thinking thinking appear limited yet potentially fruitful.

1) What are the major issues in rural area?

The major problems consists of the agriculture, the ownership of the land, the lack of cottage industries, lack of education social evils, death of animals, wealth, bad wealth and so . these problems are the result of traditionalism and conservatism of the rural society.

2) Is their need to develop the rural area for betterment of country ?

The primary area to improve should be providing employment in rural areas and improving the productivity of the agricultural sector. Often villages in our countries are not in sync with urban areas because of bad connectivity eventually this leads to segregation and a social divide between Urban and rural areas.

- ZEENAT ABDUL KARIM SHAIKH

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