May 21 2014 : The Times of India (Mumbai) OFF THE BEATEN TRACK RURAL DEVELOPMENT Work for rural development & make a living too Vinamrata Borwankar   Has compassion or consideration for the needy been put on the backburner by the thought of earning your  daily bread? A career in the rural development sector is now rewarded with adequate compensation to sustain  he zeal.“The time is always be right to work for social good but with the CSR clause in the new Companies  Act, employment opportunities have increased manifold in the development sector. A quick search on Linkedin  will show that several companies are looking for candidates who understand the rural market. ,“ said Sahej  Mantri, manager (alliances) at Hopemonkey.org, a nonprofit organization involved in fund raising. STARTING OUT Social work or rural development as a discipline is available in many universities and  institutes, both at the graduate and postgraduate levels. Specialization in post-graduation could in clude topics  like human resource management, criminology and correctional administration, medical and psychiatric  social work, family and child welfare, rural and urban community development, and schools social work. However professionals say lack of a formal background in social work may not be a hindrance. “You can learn  the working of the industry through internships and volunteer work. Once you have been in the field for  some time you gain understanding about the beneficiaries to work towards their good,“ said Mantri. CAREER PROSPECTS The job would involve working to provide solutions for people's social, economic and  emotional problems through counseling, arranging conferences, increasing resources, spreading public  awareness and starting social programmes and health services. Opportunities in the development sector  are varied, which can range from working in various developmental projects of the government to working for  NGOs and international organisations.

Poverty dropped faster in villages than cities

Maninder Dabas @ManDabas

A new report by the rural development ministry says that poverty in rural Maharashtra has reduced more than in urban centres in the state in the five years to 2009-10. According to data, poverty in rural Maharashtra has reduced faster than that in rural parts of Gujarat and Haryana. This is being attributed to growth in industrial and non-farm activities, perhaps even migration of people to urban areas in search of better opportunities. The Rural Development Report 2012-13 states that the poverty ratio that was 47.9% in rural Maharashtra in 2005-06 dropped to 29.5% in 2009-10, as compared with urban Maharashtra where the poverty ratio reduced from 25.6% in 2005-06 to 18.3% in 2009-10. Poverty reduced a lot quicker in Maharashtra than in Gujarat where the poverty ratio was 39.1% in 2004-05 and 26.7% in 2009-10. In Haryana, the poverty ratio reduced from 24.8% to 18.6% in the same period. “There could be various reasons for the pace of reduction of poverty,” said an official in the Ministry of Rural Development. “One is rapid industrialisation in rural areas of states like Maharastra which has reduced the dependency on agriculture as a source of employment. Non-farm activities, like poultry, have also given people other options. The migration from rural areas to urban centres might be another reason for the decline in the poverty ratio,” he said. In the decade to 2005-06 the pace of reduction was slower. In 1993-94, the poverty ratio in rural Maharastra was 59.3% which came down to 47.9% by 2005-06. According to the report, the percentage of severely poor people in rural Maharashtra has also declined considerably. In 2005-06, the percentage of severely poor was 22.5 and this came down to just 8.6 in 2009-10. The severely poor constitute nearly 30% of the poor. Interestingly, this reduction is again better than Gujarat where the percentage of severely poor dropped from 17.3 in 2005-06 to 5.7 in 2009-10. However, the severely poor comprise about 20% of the poor people in Gujarat. A majority of the poor are still from the lower castes. But the report states that there has been a substantial decline in the these numbers too. In 1993-94 the poverty ratio among scheduled tribes and scheduled castes was 74.1% and 73.9% respectively and this went down to 51.7% and 37.6% respectively in 2009-10. The reported noted that rural poverty is becoming increasingly concentrated in states like Jharkhand, Bihar, Assam, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh where about 65% of the country’s poor live. This was about 50% in 1993. Source::: DNA, 07-10-2013, p.07, http://epaper.dnaindia.com/story.aspx?id=53017&boxid=31635&ed_date=2013-10-07&ed_code=820009&ed_page=7

One in five rural homes lacks access to drinking water, electricity & sanitation

Only 18% Have All Three Utilities, Sharp Drop In Agriculture’s GDP Share

TIMES INSIGHT GROUP 

    One in five rural households has none of the three basic facilities — drinking water, electricity and sanitation — while only about 18% have access to all three. 
    The India Rural Development Report 2012-13 released by Jairam Ramesh on Thursday shows that while rural poverty has reduced significantly from over 40% to just 26%, there is large variation in poverty reduction between regions, districts and social classes, with persistent pockets of deprivation. 
    The Union rural development minister said the significant shift to non-farm labour in rural areas has debunked the notion that the share of agricultural labour in employment has stagnated while the share of agriculture in GDP has fallen sharply to just 14% in 2011-12. 
    While agriculture remains the largest employer in rural areas, the proportion of people employed in non-farm labour went up from 32% in 1993 to 42.5% in 2009-10. Ramesh said non-farm employment could be stimulated only by rapid farm growth. The mandate of his ministry to ensure rural development could be hamstrung by the persistent agricultural crisis marked by a shrinking share in the GDP, lack of public investment and dependence on rainfed agriculture. 
    While the minister saw the increase in non-farm rural employment as a positive, a closer look at the data reveals that the proportion of self-employed people in agriculture, i.e. cultivators, is shrinking even as large numbers shift to non-farm jobs on insecure terms. Of the 42% engaged in non-farm employment, most are engaged in unskilled jobs such as construction and trade. Even among those engaged in manufacturing, most are casual labourers. 
    Increased fragmentation of land holdings has meant a halving of the average size of land holdings from 2.3 hectares in 1970-71 to 1.2 hectares in 2010-11. The proportion of marginal farmers rose from 9% to 22% and that of small farmers from 12% to 22% in the same period. Large land holdings — over 10 hectares — shrank from 30% of the total cultivated land to just 11%. 
    In the past decade, public investment in agriculture has remained stagnant at about 3% of the agricultural GDP and the consequent crisis in agriculture is reflected in growing farmer suicides. The numbers rose from over 10,700 cultivators in 1995 to over 17,000 by 2009, after which it fell to 13,700 in 2012. Indebtedness and crop failure have been blamed for most suicides. 
    Despite the hype about financial inclusion and extension of banking and credit to rural farmers, the proportion of rural households availing any banking services was just 54% in 2011. A look at the loans disbursed by commercial banks to farmers showed that marginal farmers accounted for the lowest disbursement — Rs 42,600 crore — while fewer medium and large farmers got over Rs 73,000 crore. 
    The efforts to expand rural physical infrastructure, including water, electricity and sanitation, have shown some results, though the minister admitted that sanitation remained India’s single biggest failure, with a large proportion of the rural population still defecating in the open, and childhood malnutrition and ill health being rampant. 
    Malnutrition caused also by poor calorie intake persists despite increasing monthly per capita expenditure. From 2,153 calories, consumption has steadily decreased to just 2,020 calories in 2009-10, indicating distress as most people would not be willingly consuming less. 
    Social infrastructure, according to the minister, is still not a positive story in rural India. Traditionally disadvantaged groups such as scheduled caste (SC) and schedules tribes (ST) are the worst affected by this. They also happen to have the highest proportion of the poor — 47% of ST and 42% of SC as compared to just 28% of the rest of the communities. 
    The report revealed that though the proportion of poor in all the communities has come down, the gap in poverty reduction between the various communities has persisted. 
    Despite high rural enrolment, the proportion of students in an age group attending school fell steadily from 78% at the primary level to just 29% at the higher secondary level in 2009-10. Learning levels were also poor with less than half the students in class Vbeing able to read letters and words and books of class I and II. Less than half the students in class VIII could recognize numbers and do addition and subtraction. 
    In health too, rural India fared badly, with over 28% not accessing treatment as they could not afford to. This proportion goes up to 37% for SCs and 32% for STs. Larger proportions of these two groups use government health facilities compared to other social groups. Hence, poor public health infrastructure hits them the hardest. Despite the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), rural healthcare suffers from a lack of qualified personnel at every level — from paramedics to doctors and specialists — and requires greater investment in physical infrastructure too. 
    To address such wide variation in access to facilities in rural areas, the report has recommended greater emphasis on inclusion, sustainability and effective delivery of services in planning for rural development.

Source:::: The Times of India, 27-09-2013, p.10,  http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Client.asp?Daily=TOIM&showST=true&login=default&pub=TOI&Enter=true&Skin=TOINEW&AW=1380269603906