We are delighted to cite that Indian is the fifth largest economy in the world by ignoring the fact that nearly 70% population out of 1.4 billion lives in villages. There are many 600,000 villages in India and 640 districts. Predominantly, villagers depend on agriculture and related activities. Monsoon is the key factor for farming in India. And, monsoon is very fastidious, a well-known fact despite so many technological advancements, Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) fails to predict it on time.
About 30% of people live in rural areas. Raising the rate of literacy is the only goal of education. The number of colleges and high schools is wildly out of proportion. Students have to travel to town to get into colleges. Our government schools can cater education to 60% of the of the population of India. As per available data on the internet, there are 10,223,86 government schools in India. These numbers are not increasing but rather decreasing every year, around 0.02%. No one is focusing on this gross injustice, despite the fact that education is a fundamental right for children between the ages of 6 and 14.
Attempts have been made by successive governments to reduce the poverty over the years. Of course! Numbers seems to be improving on paper but not on ground level. Although, a series of rural development programs are as follows:
1-Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna (PMAY-G)
2-Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojna (Saubhagya)
3-Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojna (PMUY)
4-Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojna
5-MGNREGA (100 days of employment in every financial year)
6-Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushal Yojna (DDU-GKY)
7-Indira Awas Yojna (IAY)
8-Sampporna Grameen Rozgar Yojna (SGRY)
9-Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojna (PMGY)
10-Aajeevika- National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM)
1.77 lakh crore has been revised to be allocated for rural development in 2024–25. Still, a marginal difference in terms of the upliftment of rural poverty has been noticed so far. Announcing the welfare schemes does not guarantee improvement unless accountability is fixed for policymakers. Since independence, rural India has been suffering from poverty, education, health, quality of life, and many more issues. Not a single issue has been eliminated from the list, despite all talks and data.
In a recently concluded conference of farmers in Varanasi, agriculture minister, Shivraj Singh highlighted the achievements of “Kisan Samman Nidhi,” in which 20 lakh crores will be distributed among around 10 crore farmers. Six thousand rupees is the annual amount distributed to farmers. Is this amount sufficient to improve the agriculture sector in India?
By engaging 62% of employees, the agriculture sector contributes 18.2% to the gross domestic product (GDP). Unless this gap is bridged, development in agriculture or the rural sector appears to be an impossible reality in India. The total R&D (research and development) expenditure in India (0.7%) of GDP is much lower than that in the US (2.8), China (2.1), and Israel (4.2). Although the fiscal policy statement highlights that the agriculture sector is expected to grow by 3.5% because the export of agricultural products has been on the rise. However, the share of agriculture in total gross value added (GDA) has been declined to 15% which was 35% in 1990-91.