Rural Development (India)

Organized Retail will help farmers

2008-03-14T23:45:00.000-07:00

Check this news item from livemint which shows how organized retail can provide a paradigm shift for Indian fruit and vegetable farmers:-
http://www.livemint.com/2008/03/12014136/From-mandi-to-WalMart.html

DHAN Foundation

2008-02-26T20:16:00.000-08:00

http://indiapost.com/article/communitypost/2130/

MoT to develop rural tourism Master Plan

2008-02-22T19:18:00.000-08:00

The Ministry of Tourism (MoT) has come up with an initiative to develop a Master plan for promoting rural tourism in the country. Supported by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) India, the Master Plan will identify 125 rural sites, which will then be developed at an investment of Rs 50 lakh per site. Out of the 125 proposed sites, 15 have already been developed and are currently being marketed through the website, exploreruralindia.org. By December 2008, 36 sites are expected to be ready for operations.

Read the whole news item here.

Agriculture for Development : World Bank Report

2008-02-17T07:08:00.000-08:00

Following are some pieces of information from the World Bank Report titled "Agriculture for Development" as put forward by the co-author Alain de Janvry:-

The return on investment is 5-10 times more than the return on subsidies

Growth originating in agriculture is two-three times more effective for the poor than growth originating in non-agriculture.

One of the big changes in Indian agriculture is the rise in the number of small farmers as landholdings were being fragmented all the time

And here is the eight-point agenda to tackle these issues:-

Focus on taking farm labour out of agriculture and use agriculture for environmental conservation.

Concentrate on food security; reduce subsidies and redirect public expenditure towards investments and "protection of net-food consumers"; make sure the trade policies help reduce price instability.

Improve efficiency of value chains and increase value addition in agribusinesses.

Improve competitiveness of smallholders by giving them access to productive assets.

Address productivity constraints of subsistence farmers and assist them so that they can take risks.

Move excess farm labour to the rural non-farm economy while improving the quality of employment of farm labour through regulation.

Involve the private sector in the rural non-farm economy.

Make a massive investment in improving human capital of farm labour so that excess labour can move to other jobs.

Roads will lead to rural prosperity

2008-02-05T21:01:00.001-08:00

"If I had money, I would use it to build roads. If I had more money, I would build more roads. If I had still more money, I would build still more roads." -- Robert Chambers.
Roads are the veins of a country. It is easy to overlook the contribution of Roads towards rural development. Perhaps it is because there are no direct results, although every other activity depends on it. And the other reason why politicians might not be willing to spend money on building roads is because this does not benefit the people directly (as subsities for agriculture/electricity do) and thus does not help in increasing their vote banks.
This article "Roads will lead to rural prosperity" suggest Roads as the most important driver for rural development, than any other thing (be it Education/Employment Generation Schemes/Subsidies). It also supports these with some research data. Following is an extract:-

For every million rupees spent, roads raised 335 people above the poverty line, and R&D 323. Every million rupees spent on education reduced poverty by 109 people, and on irrigation by 67 people. The lowest returns came from subsidies that are the most popular with politicians - subsidies on credit (42 people), power (27 people) and fertilisers (24 people).

It's good to notice that the article ends with writing that the Indian Government has understood this idea and there are visible changes. Notable are the following schemes in practice towards this goal:-
a. PMSY (Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana)
b. Bharat Nirman Project
c. NHAI (National Highways authority of India) involved in the construction of the Golden Quadrilateral.

Tourism: A means for Rural Development

2008-02-03T18:11:00.000-08:00

Tourism is definitely a means for Rural Development. Religious and Eco Tourism are some areas which have good potential. Considering that the average disposable income for the people in many of the sectors particularly in the metropolitan areas has increased, this income can be pumped into the Rural Economy by the means of Tourism. This will generate new direct and indirect employment oppurtunities for the people in the Rural areas. For this either the Tourism ministry of the States and Center should take active participation. I am not sure, how much regulated is the Tourism sector, but otherwise even private organisations can also take it up. Promoting the Religious places or places of cultural heritage is one thing that certainly falls in the ambit of the Government. The serene and calm atmosphere of the villages is certainly a nice way to relax. But there might be other creative ideas for people ready to explore.

This article for the potential of Tourism throws some light:-
http://www.centralchronicle.com/20080116/1601301.htm

Though the article focuses on improving Tourism in India for increasing the no. of international tourists coming to India, the same can be applied to Rural Areas.

Setting up a BPO in Rural Areas

2008-01-29T21:24:00.000-08:00

I had a long time back heard of some BPO operations in Rural areas of Kerala. Today I came across this news item of Tata Chemicals Society for Rural Development (TCSRD) inaugrating it's BPO operations called Uday at it's Mithapur plant in Gujarat. This is one good means of generating employment in the rural areas and bridging the Digital Divide. This is a Win-Win situation for the Owners of the operations and the Rural Society. The advantages of the operations are obvious:-

Labour at low cost
Low attrition rate
Low operating costs

But the key is the availability of infrastructure. If the Govt. or some other private organizations take up the task of setting up infrastructure many such business can flourish.

Bill Gates gives $27 million to Denver nonprofit

2008-01-29T20:52:00.000-08:00

Bill Gates gives $27 million to Denver nonprofit and the good part is that all the money will be used for providing irrigation systems for farmers in India.
Read the news item here.

Improving Agriculture

2007-12-26T21:44:00.000-08:00

There can be certain minor changes done in agriculture, which can result in a significant amount of increase in the earnings of the farmers. Some of these could be :-

Cultivation of pulses instead of paddy
Switching to horticulture instead

Lost Opportunities...Unrealized Potential

2007-12-25T22:36:00.000-08:00

70% of India lives in Villages.

Right from my schooldays I have been hearing of this statistic. I am not sure how true it is. It would be certainly more than 10 years since I first came across it and shouldn't the number show some change, considering that there has been a lot of migration from the villages to the cities during this time. I don't understand where these statistics come from. But that's not the topic of this post.
Let's put the number at 60%. That means 3/5th of the Indian Population is not being provided the opportunities to realize their potential. Can you imagine what would have been the result if these neglected people were also given the education/health facilities on par with what their counterparts in the urban India enjoy? Wouldn't we have been the biggest economic power in the world.
Let's not delay it any further. They say: "Better late than Never".

PRADAN

2007-12-24T22:16:00.000-08:00

Today while going through my daily news feeds from Google on Rural Development, came across this article from The Hindu which highlighted the work being done by this Non-Profit Organization called PRADAN (PRofessional Assistance for Development ActioN).

Established in Delhi in 1983, PRADAN was pioneered by a group of young professionals, all of whom were inspired by the conviction that individuals with knowledge resources and empathy for the marginalised must work with communities at the grassroots in order to help them overcome poverty.

I too believe that until some of the educated/knowledgeable people move to the villages to assist the developmental process, not much can be achieved, despite the various Government/Non-Government Development-related Initiatives. It caught my attention and was forced to study the work being done by PRADAN towards holistic development. Some of the things that I liked about PRADAN are:-

The involvement of motivated educated youth as executives to carry on their developmental projects
Mobilization of funds from Government-created development schemes like National Food for Work Programme (NFFWP), Rastriya Sam Vikas Yojana (RSVY) and other district level projects being run by Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDAs)
Focus on improving Agricultural productivity, Microenterprise promotion etc. all of which aim at generating wealth.
To date, it has reached over 1.1 lakh rural households. That's indeed an achievement.

It has a 1-year apprenticeship program which is the training ground for people who want to get directly involved into developmental projects at grassroots level.

Online Railway Reservation Service

2007-12-17T22:45:00.000-08:00

The last time I went home, I felt the need for this. I had to accompany my uncle to the Satellite Railway Reservation Office in Aamadaalavalasa, to book the tickets for my uncle and his family. The place is around 30 km from my village, so we had to travel all the way and end up standing in a queue. After 1 hr of waiting the guy closed the counter for lunch. We came back after lunch only to find the "Link Failed" board at the counter. Luckily after waiting for some time the link was restored and we finally got our work done.

If we had some internet-cafe in the nearby town with a good/reliable internet connection, we could have used the IRCTC (Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Cororation Ltd.) website to reserve the tickets online. This could have saved us time and money. Isn't this a good business idea? Perhaps somebody can provide this Service through his internet-cafe at a premium. The precursor is a good and reliable internet connectivity. I see that there are a handful of internet cafe's in the nearby town, but the connection is quite slow and also unreliable. But there was a significant improvement from the time when I had used it a year ago. Hopefully within the next year things improve in this direction either because of state-owned ISPs (Internet Service Providers) like BSNL or other private ISPs. One thing that comes to the mind is that if there was tremendous improvement in the Cellular connectivity over there (Consider the fact that it has been more than a year since Cellular Service Providers like BSNL, Reliance, Airtel and Hutch have started their operations there) , why is that the Internet Connectivity not improving? It's simple : No big Demand for it. The other thing to note is that even Satellite-based TV like Tata-Sky is also becoming popular over there within very short time of it's introduction.

SEZ's Proving their Worth

2007-12-13T23:32:00.000-08:00

Read this article about the Apache SEZ (Special Economic Zone) in Tada, Nellore. It's yet another story proving that setting up small/medium scale industry is the way towards rural development. It talks about the increasing incomes that unskilled/semi-skilled people around the region are getting because of being employed in this Sports Shoe manufacturing unit (Interesting to note is that the shoe's that are made here are sold under the "Adidas" brand). A salary of Rs 3500 a month in the villages is not less. This is also stopping the urban migration to some extent. It seems that the workers over here have also stated buying motor-cycles. That's an indication of improved lifestyle.

Reverse Diaspora

2007-12-12T21:48:00.000-08:00

One means of generating wealth in the Rural Areas is to make it easy for the Software Engineers to be able to work from Villages. As these people have relatively high income at their disposal, they will spend more and this will in-turn create more opportunities.

Why would the SE's move to Rural Areas:-

Existing Cities are unable to handle the increasing population and they have become overcrowded
Enormous Pollution
Increased Traffic and Congestion
Steep increase in Prices
Increased Rental and Property prices

What Infrastructural facilities need to be provided:-

Power
Internet Connectivity (Telecommunications is already there)
Proper Roads and Transportation
Health Services
Proper Education Facilities so that the children of these people can have good

Advantages:-

Little or no Pollution in the Villages and Peaceful atmosphere
With this kind of Diaspora Cities will be eased
The higher disposable income of these people will increase the wealth of other people involved in the rural economy like shopkeepers etc.
This wealthy class will demand better services like hospitals/education etc. and which would automatically improve the status of these services in the villages. Ofcourse these services might not be available to the existing people with low incomes
Working from home will reduce the Energy consumed for Transportation
Total cost of owning a house (including the price of the land and construction) is quite less in villages and if more people are constructing houses then there is another market (construction market and demand for labour) getting created here.

Disadvantages:-

Rural Economic Development

2007-12-11T22:48:00.000-08:00

Some ideas for rural economic development:-

Agriculture
Industries (Small and Large Scale)
Food Processing
Tourism

The Govt. is pumping in money through various developmental schemes likes Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, Free Housing etc. but most of these are not sustainable. Instead of basing the schemes on wealth generation, it is spending wealth on these short-sighted schemes. Urbanizing the villages/towns is a promising concept and slowly it seems the political leaders are also getting to understand it. I have been hearing of the honourable Ex-President APJ Abdul Kalam trying his best to spread the word about PURA (Providing Urban amenities in Rural Areas).

Rythu Bazaar

2006-08-02T07:00:00.000-07:00

I hold the concept of "Rythu Bazaars" in high esteem. The presence of these even today after Chadrababu's regime (it is one of the good schemes implemented by the TDP government led by N. Chandrababu Naidu) shows the success of the scheme. What it did was to allow the farmers to directly sell their produce in the urban markets bypassing the network of distributors/resellers/brokers. This helped both the producers and consumers as the consumers could get it for lesser than they usually paid, and the producers could get more money for their produce than they used to get from the brokers. For this he even arranged transportation (APSRTC Buses, the state-run public transport system). I am not sure if even today they are in-place. Of course it is only limited to those areas which are closer to urban markets but still it is effective for that sector.

Agriculture a profession?

2006-08-02T06:58:00.000-07:00

Is just agriculture enough to provide for a comfortable living?

Was wondering if agriculture can be taken up as a full-time profession. Leave aside the money that can be earned. Assuming we are looking at 1 acre of land. Looking at the amount of effort/time that it requires, it doesn't seem like it can be a full-time profession. You have short peaks where the work is there (like tilling, sowing and harvesting) and the rest all is slack time. At most maybe a couple of hours a week for inspection, irrigation, weeding etc. So obviously human productivity will be very less if this is the sole occupation. (place the economics here) Compare this with the amount of time people are expected to put in other professions. 8 hours a day and 6 days a week (barring a few professions which have 5-day weeks). With this a person can earn around 6k rupees per month which amounts to 72k rupees a year. What I intend to convey is that we could think of doing other things apart from agriculture and increase human productivity. People were used to making cultivation as the only occupation in the earlier days because, that was the only thing you could do, or you had very limited options then, but now the gamut of oppurtunities has increased considerably. I dont say it is not being done...there are people who do cultivation and also do agricultural labour for others. But I am hinting at the state/govt providing for such a flexibility where you can have two or more occupations. Of course this seems to be a bad idea in the current situation when there is a large chunk of population which is totally unemployed.

how much land is required?
size of the family?
no. of hours spent?
yearly income?
money invested?
limit on the productivity

RISC

2006-07-26T07:14:00.000-07:00

Came across this paper called RISC by Atanu Dey and Vinod Khosla. These are my initial opinions (haven't given much thought and also I dont think I am sufficiently equipped w.r.t to understand it deeply and it's consequences).
What it proposes:-

To develop the rural population the rural area should be transformed into a collection of cities some 5000 of them called RISC centers.
Instead of providing all the infrastructure and services to every village provide them at these RISC centers as this is only economically viable. the cost or providing the services will be less because the services are being offered to a large no. of people (each RISC center caters to around 100 villages, which means around 1,00,000 people)

According to it these are going to be results:-

stop the rural-to-urban migration (due to creation of employment oppurtunities and availability of the services that are now available only in the urban area.)
increase in per-capita income of the rural people
all this happens at a lesser cost and it is a catalytic cycle, which will continue once started.

It seems very convincing, but my only worry at present is that the rural landscape will get polluted because of this urbanization.

Date (24/07/2006)

The Big Divide

2006-03-03T08:21:00.000-08:00

"Urban India where the Infromation Technology revolution is taking place, from where the upwardly mobile middle class is located and from where it seeks to zoom into trajectories of two-digit growth, where foreign direct investment is invited and feted, that urban India is where money makes money. Rural India, where a failed monsoon leading to a failed crop means disaster. And a good monsoon leading to a bumper crop can also mean disaster for the farmer who will have to sell for less, where the systems of institutional credit have weakened, spawning informal and vicious private money lending, where hundreds of farmers have swallowed the pesticide they have borrowed to buy, that rural India is concerned with the money that is not made. At least by those who need it."
This is an extract from "The Hindu" dated 03 March 2006. With this I start this blog, a place for my views on the country side of this country, also my first step towards fulfilling my dream.