India lives in its villages, and while the cities have grown immensely over the last 20 years, rural areas have not seen that kind of development. For India’s economy to be strong, the rural economy needs to grow. Rural areas are still plagued by problems of malnourishment, illiteracy, unemployment and lack of basic infrastructure like schools, colleges, hospitals, sanitation, etc. This has led to youth moving out of villages to work in cities. This could be compared to the brain drain from India to US. Our villages need to grow in tandem with cities and standard of life has to improve there for inclusive growth to happen. If rural India is poor, India is poor.
Poverty in Rural India
India lives in many generations, and visiting rural areas very easily shows that they lag behind cities by decades. While we have latest services and products available in our cities now, villagers are still coping with age old products. It is easy to see the rising disconnect between cities and villages. Some examples are –
- While we have international fully air conditioned schools in our cities, the schools in villages still don’t have benches and chairs, leave alone computers. We have a huge shortage of teachers in rural areas, and the school drop out rate is huge.
- In cities, we have wide roads, flyovers and underpasses while many villages still don’t have proper roads. Urban-rural road links can play a vital role in rural growth.
- Employment opportunities are hardly there in villages which forces youth to move to cities creating imbalance in the ecosystem and leaving the villages deprived.
- While we may have numerous hospitals, nursing homes and medical facilities in cities, villages neither have health awareness nor health facilities. See the condition of major hospitals like AIIMS to know how many villagers have to flock to cities for even basic treatments.
Women fetching water from kilometers away
Apart from the above options, villages need to have –
- Proper land reforms to make sure land is held, owned, cultivated, irrigated to make the most efficient use and maximum output.
- Rural credit – Banking services need to be popularized and credit should be available for basic services like agriculture.
- Electrification – Many villages still receive only 2 to 6 hours of electricity per day which needs to drastically improve to empower the villages of India.
Mobiles have empowered rural India
Basically, what we need is to empower the rural people by providing them education and proper health care. They need to have infrastructure like electricity and water so that they are free from the cycle of droughts and floods. We need to give them self-employment so that they want to stay in villages instead of migrating in cities. There is a need to empower the villagers, and not just supporting them by food subsidies, loan waivers which end up crippling them. India will grow only when rural India marches hand in hand with cities in the twenty first century.
Sir your speech is really super … I am very impressed towards your words…. when I am read that I feel like really live speech your use of language is nice …. If you don’t mind can you give your personal mail address because I need your help …my mail address is gkrajeshkumar6@gmail.com
Totally super sir .. If you have your speeches please send to me ..
Hi Sumit,
I wholeheartedly appreciative your initiative to highlight the problems faced by the poor in rural India. But, I would have liked if you laid some more emphasis on the solution part. Ofcourse you mentioned about education, healthcare and employment. Everyone agrees it, its the final destination. But which way is the route? I believe decentralization is the key. All the facilities you asked for in your blog can be provided to each village for just 2-3 cr. For the 2 lakh odd villages in india it costs 6 lakh crore. Thatz about 10% of what GOI spends over a period of 5 years. I know that GOI spends a lot more than this on rural economy. But we all know where that money goes. If this money is transfered directly to the village panchayat and spent under the supervision of gram sabha, we will not be discussing poverty after 5 years. You might be thinking it can’t be that simple, but it is.
I believe waiting for a solution from somebody (govt or any other body) is what we have been doing so far… What is required is to empower the local people to take on self-employment as the way towards better amenities, facilities…
How the govt, private institutions can help them is provide them with mentoring, credit, other such benefits. Once they take on living powerful lives, they will vote for change and not for money… The hope to bring change and self-confidence to provide the best for their family is needed…
sir , your speech is really very nice .your speech has helped me in doing my economics project .
sir , your voice …..awesome.
hello sir,
i am doing a course of ARCHITECTURE….we have been given many design task related to the many kinds of building type…out of which i chose the “RURAL DEVELOPMENT-INDIAN VILLAGES”……..going through your article i felt u did the immense case study over rural areas and problems of villages….
i would be very obliged if i get some help of yours regarding this case…..
if u have some more data about village and its problem please mail it on my id- tps_mousmi@yahoo.com..
thankssss…
ALL YOUR IDEAS ARE RIGHT.BUT I FEEL SAD.AS YOU SAID CITIES GROWING STRONG AND VILLAGES FORGOTTEN THIS IS TRUE.BUT WHERE AND HOW TOBEGIN
Yes ,sir you are awesome . i am a student and i need a speech for rural development and you solved my problem
Thanxxxx……
nice article thank you for sharing the post keep sharing | |vision40
Hellow Sir,
I am completed My post gradution in Rural Management.
My question is this Rural Management course is equal to Rural Development course ?
And gave any suggestion for jobs …
Please sir ….
hlo sir / mam i appreciate you very much i was extraordinary it helped me a lot
very informative article really loves the way you write. worth visiting as well as worth recommending to the people.Thanks to you for sharing this helpful information with us.keep going.|Nano Educuation
Fabulous thought sir ..
Nice essay ..helped me alot ..thanks for such a nice and helpful essay
Thanks for sharing.