What Is Rural Development?

Rural development is a broad, comprehensive idea: a plan of action aimed at areas of the village economy that are lagging behind in overall development.

Areas that need fresh initiatives

• Human resource development — literacy (especially female literacy), education and skill development, along with health, covering both sanitation and public health.
• Land reforms.
• Development of each locality's productive resources.
• Infrastructure — electricity, irrigation, credit, marketing, transport (including village roads and feeder roads linking to highways), facilities for agricultural research and extension, and the spread of information.
• Special anti-poverty measures — improving the living conditions of the weaker sections, with an emphasis on access to productive employment.

In practice this means giving people in farm and non-farm rural activities the means to raise their productivity, and the chance to diversify into non-farm work such as food processing. Affordable access to healthcare, workplace and home sanitation, and education for all are also top priorities for rapid rural development.

Why rural development has stalled

Although agriculture's share in GDP has been declining, the population dependent on it has not fallen much. After the reforms, the sector's growth slowed to around 3 per cent a year during 1991-2012, lower than in earlier years, and in recent years it has turned volatile — during 2014-15, the GVA growth rate of agriculture and its allied sectors was less than one per cent. Scholars point to the fall in public investment since 1991 as the main reason, along with weak infrastructure, few alternative jobs in industry or services, and rising casualisation of employment. The result is growing distress among farmers across different parts of India. Against this backdrop, the chapter examines credit and marketing systems, agricultural diversification and the role of organic farming.