India's rural landscape goes well beyond tilling the soil and toiling by farmers on the margin of their livelihood, to the problems and aspirations more or less similar to those living in cities. Villages of 2023 are not the same as in the eighties or even nineties. They are urbanised to the extent that villagers too have mobile phones consuming data on content of their choice, have better road connectivity to the nearest town but improvement in water supply has created a problem of liquid waste and plastic bags are strewn around in the mud and filth, resulting in health issues.
These and other points emerged from a brainstorming session at the 'Agenda for Rural India ' National Convention in New Delhi early this week, marking the launch of a print magazine 'Rural World' by Rural Voice, a digital platform that has made quite a mark in the last three years. The session was addressed by those with wealth of experience in administration, rural finance and the cooperative sector.
One of the key points brought in by former Agriculture Secretary and an authentic voice on the rural setting T. Nand Kumar related to what he called a ''delivery deficit'' at the grassroots, when it comes to different government schemes. Kumar, who himself had served as a District Collector in Bihar as a young IAS officer, expressed concern over government institutions being ''not accountable for delivery deficit''. A DC, according to his first-hand knowledge, is burdened with chairing 100/150 committees, which he or she would not even know about. Block Development Officer or BDO, is the ''most harassed'' delivery channel. What is the answer then? Kumar would like more autonomy and involvement of Panchayats and more participation of the civil society as channels of delivery at the grassroot.
Former Chairman of NABARD Harsh Kumar Bhanwala, another credible voice of rural India, shared his concern over a pathetic state of sanitation in villages which have been urbanised in consumption habits like packaged food but lack solid waste or liquid waste infrastructure. One of his suggestions included a large programme of solar plants at the micro level or at a cluster level to overcome the problem of erratic power supply to the farmers. His experience at the NABARD shows, ''funds should not be a problem for the initiative''. He showed his concern over 400-500 unemployed youngsters in most of the villages. Although Bhanwala has had an excellent career in top agriculture related institutions and is based in the national capital, he regularly visits his own village in Haryana, besides other rural landscapes.
Sandeep Kumar Nayak, former Managing Director National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC) shared several important suggestions to modernise cooperatives for providing missing linkages like marketing and procurement for farmers. His emphasis was on ''governance transparency and modernisation of the cooperatives''. He said things like multi-state cooperatives are forward looking ideas.
Dr D N Thakur, National President, Sahakar Bharati said, “Rural India has changed but ''changed for worse'' ruing corruption at local levels. His areas of concern included self-seeking local leadership and lack of those committed to community service. But a very important intervention came from the floor arguing ''we should not dilute powers of panchayats'' just because a few of them were not honest and transparent. Instead, they should be given more autonomy and budget.
Overall, the session engaged the interest of the participants who remained quite interactive with the speakers. Rural agenda looked so real at the launch of the Rural World World magazine.