logo
What does the story of India's rural development say?

What does the story of India's rural development say?

Indian Express4 hours ago
— Ritwika Patgiri
The government's decision to cap the spending under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) at 60 per cent for the FY 2025-26 came even as the Ministry of Rural Development sought an increased outlay of Rs 5.23 lakh crore for the MGNREGS till 2029-30.
Data shows that India has been witnessing a decline in budget allocation for essential social sectors. For instance, the budget allocations for different programmes under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) have seen a steady decline since before 2019.
While MGNREGS has seen a minimal increase in its allocated budget, the number of families working under the scheme has come down from 7.25 crore in 2021-22 to 5.79 crore in 2024-25. With around 65 per cent of the country's population living in rural areas, alongside the ongoing rural distress, such declining welfare allocations have serious implications for rural development.
Rural development as a concept gained traction in the 1970s with renewed emphasis on rural policies and programmes. This stemmed from the failure of state-led modernisation projects and industrialisation policies that fell short of expectations. With growth concentrated in certain areas and widespread rural poverty persisting in the 1970s, it was recognised that the dispersion of basic services is central to equitable distribution of resources and poverty alleviation.
Thus, rural development can be understood as a package of policies that aim to foster socio-economic development in rural areas. Notably, agriculture is crucial to both rural growth and development.
According to economic theories on development, agricultural development is a pre-requisite for rural industrial growth. These theories further suggest that as agriculture grows, the relative size of farms declines. Hence, a high growth agricultural sector along with a declining farm size are seen as markers of agricultural development.
Structural transformation is, thus, shaped by the movement of both output and labour away from agriculture to the modern industrial sector. In the Indian context, it is often noted that the nature of the structural transformation has been slow and has been linked to 'premature' service-led growth. At the same time, the employment share of the manufacturing sector has failed to increase.
According to the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) data, this is primarily because of the rapid growth of the service sector, which has restrained the growth of the secondary sector. Another interesting observation about the Indian economy is that most of the service sector is led by self-employment rather than wage employment.
Rural development policies need to be understood against this backdrop. Two important schemes – the Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP) and the National Rural Employment Programme (later became MGNREGS) – can be discussed in this context.
The IRDP was launched in 1978-79 and implemented from 1980 until it was merged with five other rural development programmes in 1999. As a self-employment programme for poverty alleviation, the core objective of the IRDP was to enable identified rural poor families to increase their incomes and cross the poverty line through the acquisition of credit-based productive assets.
The MGNREGS, on the other hand, provides a one-off wage payment to the workers for developing infrastructure such as roads and irrigation works that can generate long-term benefits for the propertied classes.
While IRDP was focused on self-employment, MGNREGS emerged as a guarantor of 100 days of wage employment to rural individuals. MGNREGS, however, has faced an inadequate budget allocation in the last few years, even as there has been a renewed interest in policies and schemes around self-employment. Examples of some schemes and initiatives include:
— The Pradhan Mantri Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP): It offers subsidies to establish micro-enterprises.
— The Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana (PMMY): It facilitates self-employment through loans to micro and small businesses.
— Initiatives like the Rural Self-Employment and Training Institutes (RSETIs) and the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana (DDU-GKY): Here, the focus is on skill development and entrepreneurship training, etc.
States like Assam have also launched schemes like the Chief Minister's Atmanirbhar Asom Abhijan (CMAAA) to promote self-employment among youth through grants.
In the context of such rural policies, self-employment is perceived as dynamic and capable of generating further employment. However, the other side of the debate views India's persistent reliance on self-employment as a sign of distress, not very different from wage-employment, and an alternative in the absence of wage or other gainful employment.
Rural development can also be understood in terms of social indicators like access to electricity, drinking water, health, and education. While data from the National Family Health Survey 2019-21 suggests improvement in these indicators compared to 2015-16, a deeper analysis shows a different picture.
For instance, rural health care is often marked by informal private doctors or providers, which national-level data sets often fail to capture. While numbers suggest that people in rural areas do visit doctors and seek medical care, the quality of this healthcare needs to be discussed.
Similarly, a comparative analysis of indicators for rural and urban India shows a higher prevalence of stunting among children (37.3%) in rural areas as compared to urban areas (30.1%). Children from Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes are more likely to be seen as disproportionately affected in these indicators.
Education presents similar challenges. The findings of the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2023 reflect serious structural and quality issues in rural education. The report shows that many students in rural India are more likely to have progressed through the education system without acquiring foundational learning skills. Huge shortage of teachers and human resources further exacerbates the problems.
Moreover, PLFS data also suggests that despite the focus on skill-building and training programmes in rural India, meaningful rural employment generation has yet to materialise.
What then can be understood from India's story of rural development? While skill and entrepreneurship development are important, they cannot deliver full benefits without adequate investment in social sectors such as health, education, and nutrition. Livelihood generation needs to be aligned with a deeper understanding of the rural economy's structure.
A sustainable rural policy must integrate welfare and employment generation by strengthening budgetary support for social infrastructure. At the same time, investments in rural infrastructure can expand economic opportunities, support human development, and promote more inclusive and equitable growth.
How did the early modernisation projects shape the rural development policies in India from the 1970s onwards?
Can rural development be effectively measured through social indicators such as health, education, nutrition, or through purely economic growth metrics?
The welfare schemes like MGNREGS and self-employment schemes like PMEGP, Mudra Yojana reflect different models of rural development. Discuss.
What do persistent gaps in health and education outcomes between rural and urban India reveal about the existing rural development programmes?
(Ritwika Patgiri is a doctoral candidate at the Faculty of Economics, South Asian University.)
Share your thoughts and ideas on UPSC Special articles with ashiya.parveen@indianexpress.com.
Subscribe to our UPSC newsletter and stay updated with the news cues from the past week.
Stay updated with the latest UPSC articles by joining our Telegram channel – IndianExpress UPSC Hub, and follow us on Instagram and X.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Pushed across the border, 8 months pregnant Bengal woman arrested in Bangladesh
Pushed across the border, 8 months pregnant Bengal woman arrested in Bangladesh

Indian Express

time25 minutes ago

  • Indian Express

Pushed across the border, 8 months pregnant Bengal woman arrested in Bangladesh

Eight months pregnant Sunali Bibi is 'stateless'. Weeks after she was detained along with her husband and eight-year-old son in Delhi and pushed into Bangladesh on suspicion of being illegal Bangladeshi immigrants, the 29-year-old woman from West Bengal's Birbhum district was arrested by Bangladesh Police on Thursday for being 'illegal infiltrators'. Bibi, her son, and husband were arrested from Chapainawabganj district, Bangladesh police said, adding that another family from West Bengal – Sweety Bibi (32) with her two sons, aged 6 and 16 years – was also arrested from the area. This comes as the Calcutta High Court is hearing the habeas corpus petitions filed by the families of the two women. 'They were pushed into Bangladesh from Kurigram (bordering Assam). Thereafter, they spent some days in Dhaka, mostly on the streets. For the past month, they have been residing in Chapainawabganj district. We have arrested them. We have found Indian documents from them. They will be produced in the court tomorrow (Friday). The court will decide. All legal proceedings will be undertaken according to the law of our country. Since women and children are there, we are handling the issue with due respect and sympathy,' Rezaul Karim, the police superintendent of Chapainawabganj, told The Indian Express over the phone from Bangladesh. The family of Sunali Bibi hails from Birbhum district in West Bengal. Members of her family worked as ragpickers and domestic helpers in Delhi for the past two decades. Like Sunali, Sweety Bibi (32) and her two minor sons, hail from a village in Birbhum. They were also detained and pushed into Bangladesh at the same time. Both families were detained in Delhi's K N Katju Marg police station and then deported. A video of Sunali and others appealing for help from an undisclosed location in Bangladesh following their deportation had gone viral on social media. Reacting to their arrest in Bangladesh, the chairman of West Bengal Migrant Labour Welfare Board, Samirul Islam, said it was a matter of 'grave concern'. 'Sunali is pregnant and children are with them. They are all residents of West Bengal, and we will bring them back in all possible legal ways. Already the matter is being heard by the court,' Islam, a TMC Rajya Sabha member, said. Hearing their habeas corpus pleas, the Division Bench of Justice Tapabrata Chakraborty and Justice Reetobroto Kumar Mitra on Wednesday called the matter 'very serious' after Additional Solicitor General Ashok Chakraborty, representing the Centre, said it 'cannot be heard' in the Calcutta High Court since it is pending in the Supreme Court. The Bench, however, scheduled the next hearing on September 10, saying, 'It is a serious issue and there should not be a conflicting decision'. This comes close on the heels of detentions of Bengali migrant labourers in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Delhi, and Madhya Pradesh during the drive to nab illegal Bangladeshis. A total of nine residents of West Bengal, who were detained in Mumbai and Rajasthan, and pushed into Bangladesh. have been brought back after the intervention of the West Bengal government.

Modi on two-day visit to Gujarat from Monday, to inaugurate PMAY houses
Modi on two-day visit to Gujarat from Monday, to inaugurate PMAY houses

Indian Express

time29 minutes ago

  • Indian Express

Modi on two-day visit to Gujarat from Monday, to inaugurate PMAY houses

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be on a two-day visit to Gujarat, starting Monday, said an official statement issued on Thursday. During his visit, the PM will inaugurate 1,449 houses and 130 shops built at a cost of Rs 133.42 crore under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban) in Ahmedabad city, the release stated. Under the initiative, modern homes with improved facilities will be provided to families living in slum areas. The inauguration function for the same will be held in Ahmedabad city's Nikol area. According to the official statement, 'Under the In-Situ Slum Redevelopment component of the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban), the PM will inaugurate the rehabilitation work of a total of 1,449 houses and 130 shops constructed at a cost of ₹133.42 crore in Sector-3 of the slum, popularly known as Ramapir Tekra, in Sardar Patel Stadium Ward of the West Zone of Ahmedabad city. This project has been carried out under the Slum Rehabilitation and Redevelopment Policy-2013 of the Urban Development and Urban Housing Department of the Government of Gujarat.' 'Across Gujarat, under PMAY (Urban), 9.66 lakh houses have been sanctioned against the target of 7.64 lakh, with the construction of about 9.07 lakh houses already completed. In 2019, Gujarat received six national awards and seven in 2022 from the Central Government under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban) across various categories,' the release stated. 'Under PMAY (Rural), from 2016-17 to 2024-25, the Government of India had set a target of 8,43,168 houses, of which 6,00,932 have been completed,' according to the statement. 'For the spill-over target of 2,78,533 houses in 2025-26, 39,092 have been completed between April 1 and August 20, 2025, while 2,39,441 are under construction and scheduled for completion by March 2026. From 2016-17 to August 20, 2025, a total expenditure of ₹8,936.55 crore has been incurred under the scheme,' stated the release.

‘Silence only emboldens the bully': Chinese envoy says ‘firmly oppose' US tariffs
‘Silence only emboldens the bully': Chinese envoy says ‘firmly oppose' US tariffs

Indian Express

time29 minutes ago

  • Indian Express

‘Silence only emboldens the bully': Chinese envoy says ‘firmly oppose' US tariffs

Chinese Ambassador to India Xu Feihong on Thursday accused the United States of acting like a 'bully', saying Washington had long enjoyed the benefits of free trade but was now weaponising tariffs as 'bargaining chips.' 'US has long been benefited greatly from free trade but now uses tariffs as bargaining chips to demand exorbitant prices from various countries. The US imposed tariffs of up to 50 per cent on India, and has even threatened for more. China firmly opposes it. In the face of such acts, silence or compromise only emboldens the bully. China will firmly stand with India to uphold the multilateral trading system with the world trade organisation,' Xu said. Feihong also said that tariff and trade 'wars' were disrupting the global economic and trade system. #WATCH | China's ambassador to India, Xu Feihong says, '…US has imposed tariffs of up to 50% on India and even threatened for more. China firmly opposes it. Silence only emboldens the bully. China will firmly stand with India .' — ANI (@ANI) August 21, 2025 Pointing to Beijing's support for New Delhi, the envoy added that 'China will firmly stand with India', describing the two nations as 'double engines of economic growth in Asia.' 'China and India's friendship benefits Asia. We are the double engines of economic growth in Asia. India and China unity benefits the world at large,' Xu said. Calling for deeper collaboration, Xu said India and China had a 'responsibility to take the lead in promoting an equal and orderly multipolar world.' On trade, he offered assurances that 'all Indian commodities are welcome to enter the Chinese market' and urged the two countries to 'enhance strategic mutual trust' and 'avoid mutual suspicion.' Xu's remarks came days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in New Delhi. Modi is also expected to travel to China later this year for the SCO leaders' summit. 'Together, we can open a new chapter of a dragon-elephant tango,' Xu Feihong said speaking about the upcoming Summit.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store