Rural development

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Question Bank

ಕನ್ನಡದಲ್ಲಿ ನೋಡಿ

Concept Map

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Text Book

Karnataka Text book Rural development

Additional References

How the topic is discussed in NCERT Books

Rural Development, NCERT Text Book Class 12, Chapter 6 is much more detailed and richer and hence worth reading.

For eg. rural development is explained as follows:

1. Development of human resources including
   1. literacy, more specifically, female literacy, education and skill development
   2. health, addressing both sanitation and public health
2. land reforms
3. development of the productive resources of each locality
4. infrastructure development like electricity, irrigation, credit, marketing, transport facilities including construction of village roads and feeder roads to nearby highways, facilities for agriculture research and extension, and information dissemination
5. special measures for alleviation of poverty and bringing about significant improvement in the living conditions of the weaker sections of the population emphasizing access to productive employment opportunities

which is a detailed explanation of the various aspects relating to rural development.

The Rural Development, NCERT Text Book Class 12, Chapter 6 in addition to explaining how crucial the development of rural areas is for India’s overall development, also explains the critical role of credit and marketing systems in rural development, the importance of diversification of productive activities to sustain livelihoods and the significance of organic farming in sustainable development, which is not covered in the Karnataka chapter.

There is a need for improving the quantity and quality of infrastructure in rural areas such as banking, marketing, storage, transport and communications etc. to realise its true potential. Diversification towards new areas such as livestock, fisheries and other non-agricultural activities is necessary not only to reduce the risk from agriculture sector but also to provide productive sustainable livelihood options to our rural people. These additional discussion sub-topics help broaden the understanding of rural development. Thus the Rural Development, NCERT Text Book Class 12, Chapter 6 is a MUST read.

Useful websites

Government sites

1. Government of India website on rural development
2. Department of Women and Child Development,Karnataka
3. Ministry of Women & Child Development, Govt. of India

Wikipedia pages

1. Wikipedia page on rural development
2. Wikipedia page on decentralization
3. Wikipedia page on women and developmen
4. Wikipedia page on women and rural poverty
5. Wikipedia page on Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, a global declaration for gender justice.

Institutions for rural development

1. National Institute of Rural Development
2. National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, a special bank setup for rural development. NABARD was created from #Reserve Bank of India and has focused on rural banking to support rural development.
3. Council for Advancement of People's Action and Rural Technology (CAPART), an autonomous body, functioning under the Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India, works with over 12,000 voluntary organizations for rural development.
4. District Rural Development Agencies (India) have been the principal organ at the district level to oversee the implementation of anti-poverty programmes of the Ministry of Rural Development.
5. Institute of Rural Management, Anand is a leading school in rural management that trains peple to work for rural development]

Journals on rural development

1. Journal on rural development

Schemes for Rural Development

1. Rural development schemes and programme
2. Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Gurantee Scheme
3. Prime Minister's Rural Development Fellows Scheme
4. Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana - Prime Minister Village Road scheme
5. Sampoorna Grameen Rozgar Yojana (SGRY)
6. Integrated Watershed Management Programme (IWMP)

NGOS working for rural development

Many non governmental organisations also work for rural development, for eg. Shri Kshethra Dharmasthala Rural Development Project, MYRADA, Bijapur Integrated Rural Development Society work in Karnataka. Across each state, we have NGOs, such as Institute for Integrated Rural Development (IIRD), Maharashtra, Indian Institute for Rural Development, Rajasthan,working for rural development. Many NGOs also focus specifically to strengthen panchayat raj institutions, to promote rural development.

The above links will give an idea about the instititutions, plans, programmes relating to rural development carried out by Government of India and Government of Karnataka and other organisations.

Reference Books

1. Rural Development, putting the last first, by Robert Chambers. Robert Chambers is an authority participatory rural appraisal.
2. Talukas can provide critical mass for India’s sustainable development, Anil K. Rajvansh, detailed discussion on various aspects of developing talukas to reduce imbalanced growth]

Teaching Outlines

Rural Development is a very important priority for India. Most Indians live in villages. Rural India has lagged behind Urban India on many parameters, including provision of socio-economic infrastructure, livelihoods etc. Agriculture has not received adequate support and hence those working in agriculture have mostly seen decline in their economic status.

Rural development is closely linked to many other chapters in the Class X social studies book, including Geography (Land Use and Agriculture), Sociology (Work And Economic Life, Social Stratification and Social Problems), political science (Problems_of_India_and_Remedies, and economics (Development), hence the concept map has been linked to those topic pages as well. While teaching this topic, appropriate links to those topics also can be made, to help learner get a a holistic picture of Indian villages that transcends geography, Sociology, political science, history etc.

Students (in/from rural areas) can be encouraged to connect the lessons to their own lived experiences and experiences of their parents and relatives. Analysing the situation and reflecting on how to address challenges can be a focus, rather than only the "facts" of development or under development. In the last two decades, as the text book highlights, the processes of liberalisation and globalisation have made the divide between urban and rural India even starker.

Key Idea #1 Rural Development

Though population in India (and rest of the world) is rapidly urbanising,India is still largely rural. While Urban India has developed in the last two decades, rural India is lagging behind even more. Agriculture, the main occupation in rural India, has become a more difficult occupation and difficult for the large number of Indians to sustain on. Hence there is a critical need to focus on development of rural India, by adopting various approaches.

Learning objectives

1. Understand the importance of rural development for overall development of India
2. Understand reasons / causes for lack of rural development as well as challenges
3. Understand the possible approaches to support rural development

Notes for teachers

Can show a trend of urbanisation of population in India and Karnataka over the last hundred years (using last ten census figures). This will give a picture of the increasing urbanisation in our country and state.

Comparison of growth in population in urban and rural areas The number of people working in agriculture can be compared with the National Income share from agriculture. While number of people is still a large percentage of total population, the share of agriculture in national income has dropped in percentage terms. This means that the people depending on agriculture are relatively worse off, compared to people in manufacturing and service sectors.

The trend of farmers suicides across the country should also be discussed as a pointer to need for rural development. Many farmers do not know of alternatives to farming and agriculture has become less remunerative. Costs of production have increased, while prices often are not remunerative. Crop failures due to various reasons create poverty. High health costs are another reason for rural poverty, due to lack of reasonable health facilities in rural areas.

Providing amenities and infrastructure in rural areas is seen as an important method to reduce rural poverty and reduce migration to crowded urban areas. The PURA idea of ex President Dr Kalam is one such.

Activities

1. Activity No #1 rural development rural development activity1
2. Activity No #2 rural development rural development activity2

Key Idea #2 Decentralisation

A key factor for rural development is decentralisation. Power centres tend to locate in urban locations - national, state, district capitals are all urban settings. Moving power and authority from urban settings to rural settings is critical for rural development. This will allow the priorities of rural areas to be reflected in decisions made by authorities/policy makers, to a greater extent.

Decentralisation is basically a philosophy, which would cut across various aspects/domains - the political, the spatial, technological etc. At a political level, local self government institutions are aimed a empowering local communities. At a spatial level, supporting rural development would ensure more even development, than a model in which urban areas grow rapidly and get more resources, while rural areas languish. Decentralisation is also relevant to institutions, specially Government institutions, where authority (and responsibility) need to be shared with the institutions which are closer to the people. For instance, looking at the District Institute of Education and Training (DIET) as the academic leader for a district, that studies the learning needs of the people in the district and designs programmes based on such needs/priorities, rather than an institution that 'implements programs' that are designed at the state level, is an emphasis of the Teacher education guidelines.

Learning objectives

1. Understand the concept of decentralisation and different kinds of decentralisation - political, economic, administrative etc
2. Understand the need for decentralisation in India - political, social and economic
3. Be aware of the steps/processes for decentralisation in India - political, social and economic
4. Specifically the role of the PRI legislation in promoting political decentralisation

Notes for teachers

Decentralisation is the empowerment of the peripheries and hence to be seen as a spectrum. The powers of the central government being devolved to state governments is decentralisation. So is the devolution of powers from state governments to local governments. The recent processes of the PRI legislation and programmes like MNREGS which have provided significant funds to gram panchayats have been a support to decentralisation in India. Yet lot more needs to be done, to make decentralisation real, rather than just on paper.

Karnataka has taken progressive steps to empower panchayats. The Abdul Nazeer Sab State Institute of Rural Development (ANSSIRD),Mysore has conducted several training programmes to support panchayats. The institution is named after the late Minister for Rural Development, Sri Abdul Nazeer Sab, who worked hard to promote devolution of 'funds, functions and functionaries' to the panchayats.

In many sectors, parallel institutions of local participation, governance and accountability have been set up and gradually, these have also been linked with the panchayats, to make them more democratic. For instance, the 'School Development and Management Committees' setup now are linked to the gram panchayat committe for civic amenities in Karnataka. Initially, these committees were not linked to the panchayats and were seen as 'parallel centres'.

Activities

1. Activity No #1 rural development decentralisation activity1
2. Activity No #2 rural development decentralisation activity2

Key Idea #3 Women and rural development

The efforts of women have traditionally been devalued in all societies. Even now, the domestic labor of women is not considered in our computation of National GDP. Women have contributed hugely to development in many ways. For eg. occupations like animal husbandry, sericulture have seen high participation of women.

Secondly, in many areas, women lag behind, such as literacy rates, nutrition / health status etc. Women also form a strong component of the rural labor force, yet the wages paid to them is lower than that paid for men, though the output may be the same. Such kinds of discrimination needs to be countered both by enforcing the existing regulations and also by creating social awareness.

There are many programmes and schemes to promote womens empowerment and they need to be successful to enable women to play their rightful role in development. The Mahila Samkhya program of Government of India has its motto 'empowerment through education'. The program is also active in Karnataka.

Learning objectives

1. Understand that women have a critical role to play in development, specially rural development
2. Understand how women are still discriminated against in many ways
3. Become aware that women are rapidly entering into male dominated professions and making their mark.

Notes for teachers

This is an important section that can help students to reflect on their own internalised gender biases. The role of women has largely been devalued and even now, many think that their role should be restricted to being home makers. However, our Indian constitution is clear that women have same rights that men have, article 15 of the Indian constitution says explicitly "(1) The State shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them." However, we do see active and passive discrimination against women in the socia, political, economic spheres of activity. The reservation of seats in panchayats for women, is one important political step towards gender justice in India. While the national law requires 33% reservation, Karnataka is one of those states that have required 50% reservation of women in panchayats.

Activities

1. Activity No #1 rural development women and rural development activity1
2. Activity No #2 rural development women and rural development activity2

Assessment activities for CCE

Understanding that rural India needs to develop for ensuring social justice and equity. Understanding that steps can be taken and are being taken to support rural development in India.

Project Ideas

There is still a lot of discrimination against women and girls in India. Collate instances of such discriminatory practices from news papers and news items. Write a photo essay on 'discrimination against women and girls in India'. Review one programme for womens empowerment and comment on its work

Community Based Project

Collect information about the status of your village/town and changes over the last 3-4 decades, by interacting with local community members. What changes have been beneficial and can be considered as 'development'. Write a photo essay on 'development of my village/town'

Textbook Feedback

Chapter 3 is very well written and gives a good picture of the need for rural development.

Spelling errors

censes - should be census

can be explained better

'Development techniques enabled only urban development'. Saying 'only' is too severe and incorrect, better to say 'Development techniques largely enabled urban development'