Aims of Rural Development in India are:

• (*) Providing livelihood opportunities to those in need, including women and other vulnerable sections with focus on marginalized households.
• (*) Enhancement of livelihood security of households in rural areas by providing at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in every financial year to every household demanding employment.
• (*) Connecting all rural habitation with all and upgradation of roads weather existing roads to provide market access.
• (*) Providing basic housing and homestead to all vulnerable household in rural areas.
• (*) Providing social assistance to the elderly, widow and disabled persons.
• (*) Providing urban amenities in rural areas for improvement of quality of rural life.
• (*) Developing skill, Capacity and important development and training of rural development functionaries.
• (*) Promoting involvement of voluntary agencies and individuals for rural development.
• (*) Watershed development for initiating effective land reform measures for providing land to the landless rural poor.

Since times immemorial India has been continuing to be and will remain in the future land of village communities. That is why Mahatma Gandhi rightly stated that" India lives in villages"If the village Perishes India will too Perish. Most of the people in India live in rural areas and any strategy of social-economic development in India that neglects rural people and rural areas cannot be successful. It is a sine -qua -non of the development of India.

Rural development is a result of interchanges between various physical, technical, economic, social, cultural, and institutional factors. Rural development is continuously designed to improve the economic and social well-being of rural people.

Unemployment is considered as a bane of India’s development particularly the educated unemployed youth who become unproductive and frustrated are to be paid special attention. The small-scale sector includes village and cottage sectors are found out to be the best means to solve the growing unemployment problem. Self-employment is the only solution to the unemployment. Policy makers and economists studied and drew conclusion that setting up a small scale unit with a moderate investment has got the potential to provide employment to about 4 to 5 people directly and indirectly. The satisfaction of self-employment and the contentment of contributing to the National Income and proving livelihood to few unemployeds can have positive multiplier effect. Adding to it the SSI sector has got the inherent advantage of utilising the local resources, technologies for productive purposes and at the same time could satisfy the needs of the local people and exploit the local market at micro level.

Taking all these into consideration the Central Government initially launched Self Employment Scheme for Educated Unemployed Youth (SEEUY) popularly known as. Gramodaya Scheme introduced by Government of India in 1985 wherein financial assistance of not more than Rs.35000 was provided for industries, Rs.25000 for service units and Rs.15000 for business ventures by way of composite loans to eligible educated unemployed youth to start their small enterprises. District Industries Centre (DICs)

Indian agriculture after independence

Despite some stagnation during the later modern era the independent Republic of India was able to develop a comprehensive agricultural programme.

In the years since its independence, India has made immense progress towards food security. Indian population has tripled, and food-grain production more than quadrupled. There has been a substantial increase in available food-grain per capita.

The state of Punjab led India's Green Revolution and earned the distinction of being the country's bread basket.[53] Before the mid-1960s, India relied on imports and food aid to meet domestic requirements. However, two years of severe drought in 1965 and 1966 convinced India to reform its agricultural policy and that it could not rely on foreign aid and imports for food security. India adopted significant policy reforms focused on the goal of food grain self-sufficiency. This ushered in India's Green Revolution. It began with the decision to adopt superior yielding, disease resistant wheat varieties in combination with better farming knowledge to improve productivity. The state of Punjab led India's green revolution and earned the distinction of being the country's breadbasket.

In the 1980s, Indian agriculture policy shifted to "evolution of a production pattern in line with the demand pattern" leading to a shift in emphasis to other agricultural commodities like oilseed, fruit and vegetables. Farmers began adopting improved methods and technologies in dairying, fisheries and livestock, and meeting the diversified food needs of a growing population. As with rice, the lasting benefits of improved seeds and improved farming technologies now largely depends on whether India develops infrastructure such as irrigation network, flood control systems, reliable electricity production capacity, all-season rural and urban highways, cold storage to prevent spoilage, modern retail, and competitive buyers of produce from Indian farmers. This is increasingly the focus of Indian agriculture policy. India ranks 74 out of 113 major countries in terms of food security index.[23] India's agricultural economy is undergoing structural changes. Between 1970 and 2011, the GDP share of agriculture has fallen from 43% to 16%. This isn't because of reduced importance of agriculture or a consequence of agricultural policy; rather, it is largely due to the rapid economic growth in services, industrial output, and non-agricultural sectors in India between 2000 and 2010. Agricultural scientist MS Swaminathan has played a vital role in the green revolution. In 2013, NDTV named him one of 25 living legends of India for outstanding contributions to agriculture and making India a food-sovereign country.

An irrigation canal in Andhra Pradesh. Irrigation contributes significantly to agriculture in India.

Two states, Sikkim and Kerala[59][60] have planned to shift fully to organic farming by 2015 and 2016 respectively. Rates of electricity usage for agricultural purposes have been discussed extensively over the years.

Indian irrigation infrastructure includes a network of major and minor canals from rivers, groundwater well-based systems, tanks, and other rainwater harvesting projects for agricultural activities. Of these, the groundwater system is the largest.[61] Of the 160 million hectares of cultivated land in India, about 39 million hectare can be irrigated by groundwater wells and an additional 22 million hectares by irrigation canals.[62] In 2010, only about 35% of agricultural land in India was reliably irrigated.[63] About 2/3rd cultivated land in India is dependent on monsoons.[64] The improvements in irrigation infrastructure in the last 50 years have helped India improve food security, reduce dependence on monsoons, improve agricultural productivity and create rural job opportunities. Dams used for irrigation projects have helped provide drinking water to a growing rural population, control flood and prevent drought-related damage to agriculture.[65] However, free electricity and attractive minimum support price for water intensive crops such as sugarcane and rice have encouraged ground water mining leading to groundwater depletion and poor water quality.[66] A news report in 2019 states that more than 60% of the water available for farming in India is consumed by rice and sugar, two crops that occupy 24% of the cultivable area.[67]

What We Do

• We align all of our efforts with the objectives of the Indian government, including the country’s ambitious targets under the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

• In addition to working with the central and state governments, we partner with community groups, nonprofit organizations, academic institutions, the private sector, and development organizations.

• Our areas of focus in health care include maternal and newborn health, nutrition, family planning, and the control of infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, lymphatic filariasis, and visceral leishmaniasis. We believe that spurring innovation is key to solving these and other persistent health challenges.

• We work with partners to help develop innovative solutions that improve the quality and coverage of services in priority states, particularly Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. We also work in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, and Maharashtra, where we support programs in sanitation, agricultural development, gender equality, and digital financial inclusion.

Programs for Fastest-Growing Rural Development

The Indian government has launched extensive programs for rural development areas. Below is the list of the development programs which are carried out by the government for the upliftment of the weaker section,s in rural areas:

Output

As of 2011, India had a large and diverse agricultural sector, accounting, on average, for about 16% of GDP and 10% of export earnings. India's arable land area of 159.7 million hectares (394.6 million acres) is the second largest in the world, after the United States. Its gross irrigated crop area of 82.6 million hectares (215.6 million acres) is the largest in the world. India is among the top three global producers of many crops, including wheat, rice, pulses, cotton, peanuts, fruits and vegetables. Worldwide, as of 2011, India had the largest herds of buffalo and cattle, is the largest producer of milk and has one of the largest and fastest growing poultry industries

Major products and yields

The following table presents the 20 most important agricultural products in India, by economic value, in 2009. Included in the table is the average productivity of India's farms for each produce. For context and comparison, included is the average of the most productive farms in the world and name of country where the most productive farms existed in 2010. The table suggests India has large potential for further accomplishments from productivity increases, in increased agricultural output and agricultural incomes.

The required level of investment for the development of marketing, storage and cold storage infrastructure is estimated to be huge. The government has not been able to implement schemes to raise investment in marketing infrastructure. Among these schemes are 'Construction of Rural Godowns', 'Market Research and Information Network', and 'Development / Strengthening of Agricultural Marketing Infrastructure, Grading and Standardisation'.[131]

The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), established in 1905, was responsible for the search leading to the "Indian Green Revolution" of the 1970s. The ICAR is the apex body in agriculture and related allied fields, including research and education.[132] The Union Minister of Agriculture is the president of the ICAR. The Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute develops new techniques for the design of agricultural experiments, analyses data in agriculture, and specialises in statistical techniques for animal and plant breeding.[citation needed]

Recently (May 2016) the government of India has set up the Farmers Commission to completely evaluate the agriculture programme.[133] Its recommendations have had a mixed reception.[citation needed]

In November 2011, India announced major reforms in organised retail. These reforms would include logistics and retail of agricultural produce. The announcement led to major political controversy. The reforms were placed on hold by the government in December 2011.[citation needed]

In the summer of 2012, the subsidised electricity for pumping, which has caused an alarming drop in aquifer levels, put additional strain on the country's electrical grid due to a 19% drop in monsoon rains and may have contributed to a blackout across much of the country. In response the state of Bihar offered farmers over $100 million in subsidised diesel to operate their pumps.[134]

In 2015, Narendra Modi announced to double farmer's income by 2022.[135]

Startups with niche technology and new business models are working to solve problems in Indian agriculture and its marketing.[136] Kandawale is one such e-commerce website which sells Indian red onions to bulk users direct from farmers, reducing unnecessary cost escalations.

India's economic growth in financial year 2018 is expected to accelerate to 6.75 percent in 2018 on improved performance in both industry and services. India is the world's sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and the third-largest by purchasing power parity (PPP). The country ranks 139th in per capita GDP (nominal) with $2,134 and 122nd in per capita GDP (PPP) with $7,783 as of 2018 (World Bank data).

Agriculture accounted for 23% of GDP, and employed 59% of the country's total workforce in 2016.[146] Agriculture, with its allied sectors, is the largest source of livelihoods in India. 70 percent of its rural households still depend primarily on agriculture for their livelihood, with 82 percent of farmers being small and marginal. In 2017-18, total food grain production was estimated at 275 million tonnes (MT). India is the largest producer (25% of global production), consumer (27% of world consumption) and importer (14%) of pulses in the world. India's annual milk production was 165 MT (2017-18), making India the largest producer of milk, jute and pulses, and with world's second-largest cattle population 190 million in 2012.[153] It is the second-largest producer of rice, wheat, sugarcane, cotton and groundnuts, as well as the second-largest fruit and vegetable producer, accounting for 10.9% and 8.6% of the world fruit and vegetable production, respectively. However, India still has many growing concerns.

As the Indian economy has diversified and grown, agriculture's contribution to GDP has steadily declined from 1951 to 2011. While achieving food sufficiency in production, India still accounts for a quarter of the world’s hungry people and home to over 190 million undernourished people. Incidence of poverty is now pegged at nearly 30 percent. As per the Global Nutrition Report (2016), India ranks 114th out of 132 countries on under-5 stunting and 120th out of 130 countries on under-5 wasting and 170th out of 185 countries on prevalence of anaemia. Anaemia continues to affect 50 percent of women including pregnant women and 60 percent of children in the country. While agriculture in India has achieved grain self-sufficiency but the production is, resource intensive, cereal centric and regionally biased. The resource intensive ways of Indian agriculture has raised serious sustainability issues too. Increasing stress on water resources of the country would definitely need a realignment and rethinking of policies. Desertification and land degradation also pose major threats to agriculture in the country.

The social aspects around agriculture have also been witnessing changing trends. The increased feminisation of agriculture is mainly due to increasing rural-urban migration by men, rise of women-headed households and growth in the production of cash crops which are labour intensive in nature. Women perform significant tasks, both, in farm as well as non-farm activities and their participation in the sector is increasing but their work is treated as an extension of their household work, and adds a dual burden of domestic responsibilities. India also needs to improve its management of agricultural practices on multiple fronts. Improvements in agriculture performance has weak linkage in improving nutrition, the agriculture sector can still improve nutrition through multiple ways: increasing incomes of farming households, diversifying production of crops, empowering women, strengthening agricultural diversity and productivity, and designing careful price and subsidy policies that should encourage the production and consumption of nutrient rich crops. Diversification of agricultural livelihoods through agri-allied sectors such as animal husbandry, forestry and fisheries has enhanced livelihood opportunities, strengthened resilience and led to considerable increase in labour force participation in the sector.

Our Mission

Formulating and Implementing Policies / Programmes / Schemes / Projects for Providing Social Security and Welfare, Regulating Conditions of Work, Occupational Health and Safety of Workers, Eliminating Child Labour, Promoting Harmonious Industrial Relations, Ensuring Enforcement of Labour Laws and Promoting Employment Services.

Our Vision

Decent Working Conditions and Improved Quality of Life of Workers, Ensuring India without Child Labour and Enhancing Employability on a Sustainable Basis.

Rural development in india

Rural development is a simple concept that is difficult to put into action. It focuses on the upliftment and development of rural economies that are experiencing severe poverty and effectively aims to increase their productivity. It also emphasises the importance of addressing various pressing issues in village economies that are impeding growth and improving these areas. Some of the areas in India that require immediate attention for rural development are as follows:

National Rural Livelihood Mission

The National Rural Livelihoods Mission was launched in June 2011 with the goal of developing institutional platforms for the rural poor to increase household incomes through livelihood support and access to financial services. This brief assesses the program’s accomplishments in its first ten years. It discovers that the Mission has had some success in improving the lives of rural women, who are the program’s backbone, and, as a result, their families. These accomplishments are primarily in the areas of social capital development, community mobilisation, and some degree of access to finance. Today, the Mission must shift its focus to livelihoods, particularly in light of the massive economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Integrated Rural Development Program

The Integrated Rural Development Program was established to provide poor people with employment opportunities. This scheme not only provides the necessary subsidies to people living below the poverty line, but it also assists them in improving their living conditions. The Government of India launched the Integrated Rural Development Program (IRDP) in 1978 and implemented it in 1980. The program’s goal is to provide poor people with employment opportunities as well as opportunities to develop their skill sets in order to improve their living conditions. The programme is regarded as one of the best yojanas for addressing poverty-related issues by providing necessary subsidies in tandem with job opportunities to those who fall below the poverty line.

Importance of Rural Development

Rural development is important not only for the majority of the population residing in rural areas, but also for the overall economic expansion of the nation. Rural development is considered to be of noticeable importance in the country today than in the olden days in the process of the evolution of the nation. It is a strategy that tries to obtain an improved and productivity, higher socio-economic equality and ambition, and stability in social and economic development. The primary task is to decrease the famine that exists in roughly about 70 percent of the rural population, and to make sufficient and healthy food available. The secondary task is to ensure the availability of clothing and footwear, a clean environment and house, medical attention, recreational provision, education, transport, and communication.

Objectives of Rural Development

The objectives composed by the government in the sixth five-year plan for rural development are:

• To improve productivity and wages of rural people
• To guarantee increased and quick employment possibilities
• To demolish unemployment and bring a notable decline in underemployment
• To guarantee an increase in the standard of living of the underprivileged population
• To provide the basic needs: elementary education, healthcare, clean drinking water, rural roads, etc.
With the passage of several decades since independence, the Indian government has stressed the need for rural development in India.

To begin with, rural development stands for the increase in income opportunities for people living in rural areas. According to the Population Census of 2011, the percentage of people residing in rural areas is close to 69% of the Indian population. It roughly translates to about 83.3 crore Indians who are settled in rural areas. Thus, rural development also includes the measures implemented by government bodies to curb the poverty rate in such areas.

As per another report by the Government of India, the percentage of the Indian population that was situated Below the Poverty Line (BPL) in 2011-2012 amounted to 21.9%. Needless to say, people affected by rural poverty contribute to a large chunk of the percentage. Therefore, the development of rural areas in terms of economy and viability of professional options is much needed. Through this progress, a sizable portion of the Indian population will find themselves out of the BPL group.

Objectives of rural development

The government’s objectives for rural development in the sixth five-year plan are as follows:

• • Raise rural people’s productivity and wages
• • Ensure increased and rapid employment opportunities
• • To eliminate unemployment and significantly reduce underemployment
• • To ensure an improvement in the underprivileged population’s standard of living
• • To meet basic needs such as elementary education, healthcare, clean drinking water, rural roads, and so on.

The Public Service

The Singapore Public Service employs about 153,000 public officers working in 16 Ministries and more than 50 Statutory Boards. Workforce growth in 2020 was largely due to public agencies ramping up more short-term positions to support COVID-related operations during the pandemic. Within the Public Service is the Civil Service, comprising about 86,000 officers working in the Ministries and Organs of State. They work in various schemes of service, including the Administrative Service, legal, education, police, civil defence as well as other generic schemes. Statutory boards (such as HDB, CPF Board, IRAS, etc) have their own recruitment and human resource management policies. They are legally distinct and independent employers from the Civil Service.

Find out more about the different sectors of the Public Service.

The Singapore Public Service has played a key role in Singapore’s nation-building journey to overcome challenges and make Singapore a better home for all Singaporeans. In a fast-changing world with new technologies and diversity of views, our work is increasingly more complex and multi-faceted. We are a purpose-driven Public Service that delivers, providing our officers meaningful careers with many experiences. We are continuously reviewing and improving the way we work: effectively working with, and not just working for citizens and stakeholders to co-create solutions. To achieve this, our public officers are developing new capabilities and transforming the culture of work.