What rural development means

Mahatma Gandhi said that India's real progress means the development of its villages, not just of its cities. This is still true: more than two-thirds of India's people depend on agriculture, which is not yet productive enough to give them a good living.

Rural development is a broad idea. It means improving the lives of village people in many ways at once:

• Human resources: literacy (especially female literacy), education and skills, health, and sanitation.
• Land reforms, so that those who work the land own it.
• Developing the productive resources of each area.
• Infrastructure: electricity, irrigation, credit, marketing, roads (including highways to villages), and research.
• Poverty alleviation, and better living conditions for the weaker sections.

It also depends on good local government, such as panchayats.

There is cause for concern. After 1991, agriculture grew at only about 3 per cent a year (1991-2012), and its growth went up and down sharply from year to year. Scholars blame mainly the decline in public investment in agriculture: in irrigation, power, roads, markets and research.