The first decade of the 21st century has seen many highs for India.The social and economic indicators of developments are showing unprecedented levels.Government has implemented many plans to facilitate better transport,communication and health facilities.Environmental concerns are finally given attention courtesy the strict measures of Jairam Ramesh.But most of all these are visible in India and not in Bharat.
The strategy of centralised development has always been talked and the repercussions are known.But the knowledge hasn't helped.A major chunk of the investments made were concerned with the urban areas.Bharat representing all the rural areas is still being neglected.The development of rural areas and the agriculture industry both show alarming concerns.We need to realize that our country's population which is almost 1/6th of world population is showing no signs of slowing down.The government expects a stabilization by 2070.Unless some concrete steps are taken, we will be the most populous country by 2030.A victory that will never be celebrated, but the loss will be celebrated in Beijing.To feed such a huge population the dependence on the food production in the country is going to to increase exponentially.And the shocking number of farmer suicide last year are indicating that no effort has been made to address the concerns of rural areas.
Moreover,because of centralised development of some metro cities, people are moving to these cities which are already over populated. So the need of the hour is to come up with more such cities.The government should encourage the capitalist class to invest in such areas which are yet under developed.This will also create employment opportunities in such places.
We people living in big cities might not realize the plight of people in the villages.Even after more than 60 years of Independence, these places haven't undergone much changes and are not connected with rest of the country.The living conditions are shocking and pathetic.People living there are living a life worse than dogs in the metros.PETA activist say, 'We should treat dogs humanely!'.We need to realize that first we should make sure that humans at these rural places are not treated dogly.
P.S. I have nothing against PETA.
5 comments:
hey.. nice to read this ... u r seriously indulging urself in ds subject very well....
great going.. keep it up.. all d best...:)
You are right Swapnil. The rural development is the need of hour. But guess what, there is no derth of investment for rural development with goverments (including central) fund schemes like MNREGS, health insurance, handpump etc etc, which amount to about INR 100,000 crs. There are two main reasons to rural migration and rural plight. One, the money does not reach there and when reaches it reaches to wrong hands many a times. Second is the castism. If you check with Bihari and UP migrants (mostly security personnel at least in Mumbai) are all so called upper caste as they can not do mineal jobs in their hometown as it would reduce their "prestige". Upper caste does not get lot of relief though they are also poor and the backward class is not educated enough to take advantage of the reliefs available.
hey Swaps .... rural development is also taking place .... more million plus cities are evolving which is reducing pressure on Delhi, mumbai kolkata etc. We have schemes like MNREGS, NRHM which are developed for rural areas. It is only that infrastructure is less in comparison to big cities so the change is happening at slow pace.
P.S. : now in rural areas it is very common to see ads of cements and branded undergarments like Macroman , Frontline or MACHO .... this clearly indicates that purchasing power in rural area is increasing too :P
good article, I have some thing to say.
one thing for sure is that as development and mechanization of agriculture takes place people would have to move out of agriculture and find other means of employment. Now the nation needs to provide opportunities to these people in rural areas itself so that they don't migrate. This would be possible only by providing adequate capital and appropriate infrastructure which includes sufficient power, good connectivity between rural areas and urban areas, which generally act as markets. Good infrastructure is of prime importance because only good infrastructure could increase the efficiency of industries and hence make them competitive when compared to urban industries .There is also need to enhance the skills which rural people have this could be done be providing them vocational trainings.
The rural areas are conducive for growth of industries like food processing, agro based industries, toy making industries etc which could be started with the raw materials available locally. This would make them sustainable in the long run.
However there are also migration from rural to urban areas in search of services like health and education. These could only be stopped only if we have these services available in villages.
PURA( Provision of Urban amenities in Rural areas) was a great vision of our former president Mr. Kalam but government has not worked on this mission at the pace it should have. you could read about this at http://pura.org.in/
However, there are schemes like MNAREGA, Bharat Nirman, Indira Awas Yojana( why the hell every second scheme starts with the name of some person from gandhi family), which are doing a lot towards rural development but need is to insure that whatever money is alloted is used efficiently
Yes, alot of schemes have been formulated but the thing is how many are actually helhping them.There are numerous cases of misuses of this peoples money.
Let's hope the govt minimizes the wastage!
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