Challenges of rural development in India

Abstract

The author attempts to assess the level and nature of development in rural India, which presently comprises about three-fourths of the total population, during the last five decades of country's Independence. It has been argued that the progress made so far is not up to scratch. The tasks ahead for rural development with an eye to ameliorating the standard of living of the rural people are quite gigantic and arduous in the face of the country's resource crunch, slow-growing economy and politics of under-development. Furthermore, the tasks loom larger with the lapse of time, ensuing from rapid rise in population and bad governance.