Rural Development

Rural development is a comprehensive term. It essentially focuses on action for the development of areas that are lagging behind in the overall development of the village economy. Some of the areas which are challenging and need fresh initiatives for development in rural India include development of human resources, Land reforms and development of the productive resources of each locality; infrastructure development, and special measures for alleviation of poverty . All this means that people engaged in farm and non-farm activities in rural areas have to be provided with various means that help them increase productivity. They also need to be given opportunities to diversify into various non-farm productive activities such as food processing. Growth of the rural economy depends primarily on the infusion of capital, from time to time, to realize higher productivity in the agriculture and non-agricultural sectors. The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) was set up in 1982 as an apex body to coordinate the activities of all institutions involved in the rural financing system. Recently, Self-Help Groups (henceforth SHGs) have emerged to fill the gap in the formal credit system because the formal credit delivery mechanism has not only proven inadequate but has also not been fully integrated into the overall rural social and community development. About 10- 15,000 per SHG and another 2.5 lakhs per SHG as a Community Investment Support Fund (CISF) are provided as part of renovating fund to take up self employement for income generation. Such credit provisions are generally referred to as micro-credit programmes.