Rural Development

Major Population of India dwells in Villages, but life in most of the villages is very miserable. Lack of Schools, poor connectivity with town and cities, and lack of knowledge of new farming techniques and business opportunities leads to such condition of most of the villages. Rise in the living standard of 10% of so-called high class, can’t be considered as India rising. For an overall development of the country, we have to look for the other 90% also. That is why, working for rural development has its importance. Rural development in general denotes economic development and community development actions and initiatives taken to improve the standard of living in non-urban neighbourhoods, remote villages and the countryside. Economic activities typically relate to the primary sector production and processing of food stuffs and raw materials.

(ii) Issues: Although there are many more, yet some major problems related to rural area is mentioned below:
• 25% villages do not have safe drinking water.
• 84% families have no access to toilets.
• Displacement, Recurring, draughts and continuous migration.
(iii) Development Actions: Rural development actions mostly aim at the social and economic development of the areas. Rural development programs are usually top-down from the local or regional authorities, regional development agencies, NGOs, national governments or international development organizations. But then, local populations can also bring about endogenous initiatives for development. The term is not limited to the issues for developing countries. In fact many of the developed countries have very active rural development programs. The main aim of the rural government policy is to develop the undeveloped villages.

Rural development aims at finding the ways to improve the rural lives with participation of the rural people themselves so as to meet the required need of the rural area. The outsider may not understand the setting, culture, language and other things prevalent in the local area. As such, general people themselves have to participate in their sustainable rural development. In developing countries like Nepal, India, integrated development approaches are being followed up. In the context of many approaches and ideas have been developed and followed up, for instance, Bottom-up approach, PRA- Participatory Rural Appraisal, RRA- Rapid Rural Appraisal etc.

Project : Wellage