Open Forum

New Delhi, 29 September 2015

Rural Deprivation

GANDHIAN VISION & REALITY

By Dhurjati Mukherjee

In the land of Mahatma Gandhi three out of every five families live a life of deprivation. This bitter truth, documented by the Union Rural Development Ministry, in its recent widely publicised report of State-wise and district breakup of socio-economic caste census (SECC), craves for urgent correction. Will there be progress in terms of action and not mere words for India’s villages and its rural folk, is a nagging question this Gandhi Jayanthi Day.  

According to the SECC, which had done away with the BPL concept, around 82 per cent households in rural Chhattisgarh do not meet any of the criteria on the 14-point exclusion list. The central Indian State is closely followed by Odisha which has 81 per cent rural households that don’t own any of the assets on the list or earn less than Rs 10,000 a month. Rural Bengal accounts for 79 per cent, Jharkhand 69 per cent and Assam 29 per cent. Overall around 60 per cent of the rural households have been considered deprived as they failed to meet any of the 14 point criteria. The eastern States were found to be the most deprived with high poverty ratio, indicating that government welfare schemes have had either no or marginal effect in rural areas.

In the light of these findings, it is clearly discernible that development has been lop-sided and not reached the far corners of the country. Moreover, there is a widening gap between the life and prosperity existing at present in the rural and urban areas. The income levels may have shown slight improvement in the rural areas in the past decade or so but poverty and squalor exists to a considerable extent in the backward districts, specially in Eastern and Central States.

In this connection, it is pertinent to refer to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s observation that he needed just 50 months to accomplish what others could not do in 50 years, hinting at reaching out to the poor, which may be a little optimistic claim. “We have been hearing about ‘garibi hatao’ for the last 40-50 years. In elections too, we hear about poverty alleviation programmes for the poor. It has become a tradition in politics to talk about the poor and their welfare. There is need to come out of this tradition”, he had pointed out. 

Though it would be rather harsh and early to say that Modi has been “fooling the people”, will he be able to gear up the task of poverty alleviation in the coming years, knowing well that it would be an impossible task, specially in the remote and backward districts?  The Prime Minister’s reference to the Jan Dhan Yojana may have been a unique scheme and started well with Rs 30,000 crores being mopped up but reports indicate that the accounts opened are not being transacted.

At a recent conference in Lucknow, by Sahaj e-Village, RBI’s Regional Director Supriya Pattanaik observed the need to have a sustained initiative of increasing the income of the rural mass. She referred to rural artisans and weavers not being given proper impetus and also the State governments not helping them in marketing these products, some of which have a good export potential. Aptly she pointed out that just creating structures will not help, there is need to make them effective.  

Skill development to promote entrepreneurship and equip 500 million Indians with skills by the year 2022 is no doubt a key area which is rightly being emphasised to enable sophisticated training in rural crafts and various other technical jobs. The National Policy for Skill Development & Entrepreneurship 2015 – part of the Skills India Mission – is aimed at empowering those left out of the mainstream education system by incentivising skill training through financial rewards to candidates who successfully complete approved training programmes. This has the potential of opening up avenues of employment on a large scale and partly tackling the problem of unemployment and underemployment existing mainly in rural areas.

It has rightly been realized that the creation of job opportunities is imperative at this juncture so that the skilled personnel are gainfully employed. As such, skill development has to simultaneously match creation of jobs which can only take place in micro, cottage and various types of village industries where requirement of manpower is rather high. 

While village level industries should be given impetus in all possible ways, marketing of specialized Indian products would also have to borne by the Government. The ‘Make in India’ cry raised by Modi can only become a reality if there is aggressive marketing of our products in the global arena. Words alone will not lead anywhere. 

The endeavour of reaching out to the rural masses has been in the true Gandhian spirit of uplifting the condition of the villages and generating employment at the grass-root level. Mahatma Gandhi visualized the village as the centre of economic activity and was of the opinion that its transformation could bring prosperity to the country. “The revival of the village”, he maintained, “is possible when it is no more exploited. Industrialization on a mass scale will necessarily lead to passive or active exploitation of the villagers as the problems of competition come in.  Therefore, we have to concentrate on the village being self-contained . . .” According to Gandhi, political and economic decentralization could really give power to the villages and allow their unfettered growth and development.    

There is no denying that the rural sector has to be rejuvenated and the disparity in incomes and facilities between cities and towns, on the one hand and rural areas, on the other reduced to the extent possible. Keeping this in view, Rurban development, much in line with the Gandhian approach has been identified by the Government at improving infrastructure like roads, power along with water and sanitation in a bid to develop the villages. In the years ahead, expectations have been raised that the Centre would give the due weightage to the rural sector, where the needs are much more and both social and physical infrastructure development is critical.         

The rejuvenation of the rural sector may not help in high GDP growth but would have a grass root effect in boosting up incomes of the economically weaker sections and the poor. There is no point is high GDP growth with heavy mechanization and industrialization without any direct effect on the masses and upgrading their conditions of livelihood. Employment needs to be generated on a large scale and centres of economic activity spread in all parts of the country, as Mahatma Gandhi visualized. 

Development has to be balanced in such a way that both industrialization – specially labour intensive micro, cottage and small industries – and agriculture move side by side so that the total effect is beneficial for the common man. The Government will have to change the pro-urban strategy of planning these past decades and ensure that adequate resources are generated for integrated and balanced development of the country, as Gandhi envisioned. Or else promises on Gandhi Jayanti will end up being false.--- INFA

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