Introduction Nearly 50 years after India’s independence, ‘Rural Development’ still remains a challenging task before the people, development organizations and professionals concerned. Several planned efforts and development programmes have not created sustainable opportunities, but made the rural population ‘dependent’ on various agencies. Despite the huge increase in investment in development sector, priorities of people in the basic needs area continue to remain unadressed. More and more people go down below the poverty line year after year. Due to indiscriminate felling of trees and rapid human and animal population growth in past decades, natural resources have been depleted. Forests have disappeared. Availability of fodder, firewood and timber has vastly diminished. Soil erosion is rampant, ground water charging is grossly inadequate. It is fortunate that wasteland and regeneration and watershed development programmes now being undertaken are able to put a brake on this process. Scientific and technological interventions have ensured vastly increased food production, but food security at household level among the majority of people is decreasing due to lack of empowerment. Rural Livelihood System Livelihood system is constituted by available resources and occupations to fulfill the basic necessities for living. Its security is dependent on potential and distribution of its resources and extent of stress on them. Rural Livelihood system is primarily based on agriculture. Other constituents are wage earning from biomass based income generation activities. Fragmentation In Land Resource Over time, fragmentation of land due to increase in family size has reduced its capability to provide a sustainable livelihood to majority of the rural people. Arable land is distributed among almost 75% households living in rural area, and only 20% are able to sustain their livelihood throughout the year through agriculture while the rest can do so for 4 – 6 months. Agriculture which used to be a source of employment to landless people is not able to generate work for them as majority of the farmers do their agricultural work themselves due to reduction in land holding sizes. As a result of it, the landless, and the marginal farmer have to move out to other wage earning sources at nearby towns, forests and govt. schemes, but all these sources are also under great stress. Rural Power Structure Unfavorable rural power structure is another factor behind insecure livelihood means among the rural poor. Rural power structure is characterized by caste and ownership of the land resource and other assets. The major proportion of the land resource is owned by a minor segment of rural communities. This minority segment dominates the decision making process and prevents flow of benefits to majority of people comprising small farmers and the landless. Owing to this reason rural poor have less share in the benefits of development programmes and in local resources and consequently have less purchasing power to meet their basic needs. Interventions Income generation oriented programmes such as DWCRA and TRYSEM to suppor the income of rural poor have failed to create any significant impact mainly due to lack of communication and skill upgradation. The interior villages are virtually untouched by the various development schemes except perhaps by Nehru Rojgar yojna where wage distribution is assured to a few for certain man days. It reflects the lacunae in planning and implementation of the development programmes without understanding the need, the nature of interventions required and without associating the beneficiaries with development programmes. Solution Workable solution to declining rural livelihood system lies in understanding the ground realities – socio-economic conditions, potential and stress on local resources and capacities, and evolving a people based development strategy to strengthen local resources, people’s capacities and integrate the alternatives in order to reduce the stress. A micro level participatory development approach can be suggested to be broadly based on following outlines :-
Such kind of participatory development approach demands change in attitude. The change in attitude is required on the part of government, development agencies and professionals in terms of working with people, transferring the ownership by developing the capacities among people, and discouragement of dependence mind-set, and empowering people to take up responsibilities to act for themselves. “Panchayati Raj” provides a key to the solution door. But, attitudinal changes are the most difficult to bring about – innovative communication through supply of information can be a major agent. Psychology of dependency is the outcome of tickle down development approach; initiatives for change in attitude on the part of government and development agencies must therefore come up on the top of the agenda for change. A.K.Tiwari is a Socail Scientist with Developement Alternatives,Jhansi |
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