Rural Areas Of India Research Articles

Connectivity and Savings Propensity among Odisha Tribals

Rural areas in India are underdeveloped relative to urban areas. One result of this has been a migration to urban areas; such migration, in turn, sharpens the problem of sustainability of rural communities. Even though there are some social benefits to urbanization, there are also disadvantages; and if urban migration is rapid and unplanned, social services in urban areas are likely to be strained. Given this, it is important to pursue strategies to develop rural areas. Such solutions can either involve external intervention with outside resources or alternatively, development using internal resources. The second solution is clearly more sustainable, as well as politically more feasible. An important part of such a self-reliant strategy involves rural saving. This paper uses the results of a survey to examine the factors affecting saving in a rural part of Odisha populated primarily by tribals. Our tentative findings are that savings propensity is determined partly by the extent to which individuals feel connected to the broader economy, and partly by cultural factors. One implication of these findings is that connecting rural areas to other, possibly urban, locations could elicit greater saving and this could lead to greater development, employment possibilities, economic betterment and all the consequent social welfare implications.

Behavioural Risk Factors, Hypertension Knowledge, and Hypertension in Rural India.

Hypertension is an important health problem in India. The emergence of hypertension and other cardiovascular diseases are strongly related to various risk factors. Knowledge about hypertension and related risk factors is often stressed on their utility in prevention and management of the disease. Still, there is a poor understanding about associated behavioural risk factors of hypertension and importance of knowledge in adopting health-promoting behaviours and controlling hypertension among rural areas of India. This study aimed at assessing the association of behavioural risk factors with hypertension knowledge and hypertension among rural population. The present study focused on a south-western state of India from which a taluk with one of the lowest socioeconomic ratings was selected. A total of 263 participants were selected by using a multistage random sampling technique. Data were collected by in-person interview using behavioural risk factors questionnaire, hypertension knowledge questionnaire, and physical measurement. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, chi square, Pearson correlation and binary logistic regression. Findings revealed that there is no significant relationship between risk factors index and knowledge of hypertension. It was also observed that factors such as smoking (OR = 0.29; CI: 090–0.961), fruit and vegetable consumption (OR = 1.32; CI: 1.01–1.74), body mass index (OR = 1.85; CI: 1.21–2.84), and age group (OR = 1.55; CI: 1.14–2.11) were significantly associated with the odds of hypertension. The factors such as smokeless tobacco use, alcohol consumption, physical activity, gender, education, and occupation were not associated with the odds of hypertension. Future research should focus on bringing down the associated risk factors to prevent and control hypertension.

Dispatch strategies based performance analysis of a hybrid renewable energy system for a remote rural area in India

A significant Indian population lives in villages and some live in remote areas disconnected from the grid connectivity. Extension of grid connection to provide power supply to these villages is not feasible, but stand-alone hybrid renewable energy system may be a feasible option. In this perspective, dispatch strategy based performance analysis has been carried out to provide power supply using the hybrid renewable energy system for a remote rural area in the state of Karnataka (India). The effect of load following, cycle charging and combined dispatch strategies on Lead Acid and Lithium-Ion batteries with Photovoltaic/Hydro/Battery and Photovoltaic/Wind/Hydro/Diesel Generator/Battery configurations has been studied using Hybrid Optimization Model for Electric Renewable (HOMER Pro®). The feasible Cost of Energy and Net Present Cost obtained for the proposed hybrid system are found in the range of 0.1 $/kWh – 0.162 $/kWh, $4,65,790 – $7,16,658 under the proposed dispatch strategies. The Cost of Energy and Net Present Cost of Lithium-Ion battery based system are found to be 30% and 35% lesser than Lead Acid battery based system. Using Lithium-Ion batteries, the Cost of Energy is reduced by 34%, 25% and 37% under Load Following, Cycle Charging and Combined Dispatch strategies. From the results obtained, it is found that under Combined Dispatch strategy, Lithium-Ion battery based hybrid renewable energy system delivers the most optimal operational costs. The study is also extended to perform sensitivity analysis on varying input parameters such as discount rate, Photovoltaic cost, battery cost, fuel cost, wind speed and design flow rate. Variation of discount rate and fuel cost affect the Cost of Energy and Net Present Cost significantly.

To What Extent Are Non Performing Assets Affecting the Profitability of Co-Operative Banks in Maharashtra?

An important role is played by the cooperative institutions, comprised of Urban Co-operative Banks (UCBs) and rural cooperative credit societies in the delivery of the banking needs to small and medium income groups who are unable to get the banking facilities from the commercial banks. For flourishing economy a strong banking sector is important. An increase in NPA put a significant impact on the profitability of the bank because banks compensate these losses from its profit. As per the Financial Stability Report June 2018, 'the stress in the banking sector continues as gross non-performing advances (GNPA) ratio rises further'. The rural sector of India has the largest contribution to the GDP of the country and the contribution of the rural population are considerably high. The cooperative banks are more active in the rural areas of India. Increasing NPA in the Co-operative banks has an adverse effect on the rural economy. The problem of NPAs are affecting the banks as well as the whole economy. This study deals with understanding the extent to which NPAs are affecting the profitability of Co-operative banks in Maharashtra.

The Major Issues of English Language Teaching in Rural Areas in India

Language is one of the streams of communicating our thoughts, sentiments and feelings. Also, on the off chance that we consider language in display world then English is a standout amongst the most utilized dialects on the planet and English is utilized as a second dialect in India. Essential level English educational programs execution is fundamental in India to accomplish the set English language competency in the provincial regions. This paper explores to acquire the issues identified with the Problems of showing English in the rural school of India and also is attempting to provide some corrective measures for the enrichment of students belong to the rustic territories of India.

Perceptions of Nurses Regarding Barriers to Implement Maternal and Newborn Care at Rural Community Health Centers of Madhya Pradesh, India: A Phenomenology Study

Introduction: Nurses are vital to providing high-quality rural maternity care throughout the continuum of adolescence, pregnancy, birth and postpartum period. Objectives: The objective of this study is to examine the barriers perceived by nurses in maternal and newborn care at community health centers in rural areas of India. Material and Method: A qualitative study was conducted to identify barriers at two selected community health centers of Madhya Pradesh. Participants were interviewed and data were analyzed using Atlas.ti software. Results: Major themes that surfaced during data analysis were related to manpower, facilities, nurses, culture and rural area. Conclusion: It is very crucial to address these reported barriers in order to provide better & evidence based maternal and newborn care in rural areas.

Socio-Economic Analysis of Effectiveness of Implementation of an Employment Guarantee Scheme at Local Level: A Study of a Village in India

The main purpose of the study is to develop theoretical and practical principles for analyzing the economic efficiency of the program to guarantee employment in rural areas in India. This program of support and active promotion of employment of the rural population is the result of the adoption of the Law on Guarantees of Employment in Rural Areas. The relevance of the choice of this scientific problem is that most scientific papers focus on assessing the effectiveness of the implementation of this legal act at the macro level, while the article analyzes this issue at the level of a particular locality. The object of the study was the village of Sanatpur in Uttar Pradesh, India. The study conducted a survey of participants in the program to guarantee employment in this rural area, which served as a basis for primary data, as well as used official statistics on the implementation of this program in the country. Descriptive statistics methods were used to analyze the effectiveness of the program to guarantee employment in rural areas. The article analyzes the mechanism of implementation of the program to guarantee employment in rural areas, namely the peculiarities of job creation in rural areas, the formation of wage policy, as well as the payment of wages to local residents. The field study identified key difficulties in implementing the above program: insufficient awareness of villagers about the opportunities and benefits of participating in the approved employment support program, as well as low access to basic financial services and lack of almost 70% of the rural population individual bank accounts. The results of the study can be useful for local and national governments in the field of social protection and social security. Keywords: decentralized planning, wage payment, job guarantee.

A Cross-sectional study on screening for knee osteoarthritis and associated factors in a rural area of India

Background: Osteoarthritis (OA) is a degenerative disease that worsens over time after fourth decade of life. It accounts for the decrease in activities of daily living in the elderly population. Hence, early diagnosis and treatment are essential to increase the quality of life. Objectives: The objective is to identify the high risk people for OA in a rural area and to find out the significant factors associated to OA among the rural population. Materials and Methods: Cross-sectional study among rural population with a convenient sample size of 100 in which 50 were male and 50 were female. Institutional ethics committee approval was taken. Informed written consent was obtained from the participants. Data collection procedure employed was Western Ontario and McMaster Universities (WOMAC) OA index. Statistical analysis was done by Epi-info statistical software package version 3.5.4 for data analysis. Results: According to WOMAC Index 38% of the subjects belonged to high risk and 62% belonged to low risk. Age group, gender, and family history were significantly associated with these scores. Conclusion: In a resource poor setting, questionnaire-based tool to detect high risk individuals for OA at an early stage is useful in reducing the morbidity.

An analysis of the second language learners in learning english: A study on the rural students

For the development of the nation, advancement and development of the rural areas are actually associated with a at most value. English could play a crucial role of the advancement of rural places. Speaking and knowing of English language is able to open brand new jobs for the individuals of rural areas and could aid them in leading to the development of the nation of ours? Teaching kids of rural areas in India is additionally an extremely crucial facet in our country's development. Language is actually among the medium of expressing our emotions, feelings, and ideas. In case we consider language in present world, English is actually among the most frequently used languages in world as well as English can be used to find out as a difficult language in the rural areas. This particular paper studies the attitude of learners towards language learning in a second language learning environment. This particular study was done utilizing a survey method. In the conclusion of the study, the collected data examined by using formulas created for attitude.

Oral Health Related Quality of Life and its Association with Dental Caries of Preschool Children in Urban and Rural Areas of India.

Background: In early childhood due to dental neglect, children suffer from multiple decayed teeth and experience pain, interfering with their daily activities. This study aimed to assess Oral Health Related Quality of Life (OHRQoL) of preschool children in urban and rural Bangalore, and to correlate it with their dental caries status. Study design: Oral health examination of 1545 preschool children, aged 3 to 5 years were selected from urban and rural Bangalore. The parents answered the Oral Health-Related Early Childhood Quality of Life OH-ECQOL proforma on OHRQoL of their children. Results: The mean OHRQoL of urban preschool children was 17.86 and was significantly different from 20.42 of rural preschool children. (p<0.001). The mean deft score was 2.60±2.26 in rural preschool children and it was significantly higher than 1.92±2.05 seen in urban preschool children (p< 0.001). A significant correlation was seen between dental caries (deft) and OHRQoL in urban preschool children (p=0.04). Their OHRQoL was significantly associated with the 'decayed' component.(p=0.03) Multiple regression analysis showed OHRQoL to be significantly associated with dental caries. Conclusion: OHRQoL among preschool children living in urban Bangalore was found to be better than those in rural Bangalore.

Opinions of general practitioners on the barriers faced during care of cancer patients: A pilot study

Background: General practitioners (GPs) are an important component and are the backbone of health-care system in rural areas of India. For the first time, an attempt is made to understand the opinions and barriers faced by GPs in the care of cancer patients and survivors from India. Materials and Methods: This was a prospective study and was conducted with GPs who had registered for continuing medical education programmes conducted by Mangalore Institute of Oncology, a Superspeciality Hospital in the West Coast of Karnataka State in India. The GPs attending the programme were requested to fill a questionnaire that addressed their opinions and barriers in taking care of cancer patients. The accrued data were subjected to frequency and percentage. In addition, the data were stratified on the basis of domicile of practice (rural vs. city) and subjected to Chi-square analysis. P

Perceived Usefulness (Pu), Perceived Ease of Use (Peou), and Behavioural Intension to Use (Biu): Mediating Effect of Attitude Toward Use (AU) with Reference to Mobile Wallet Acceptance and Adoption in Rural India

Mobile Wallet(M-Wallet) is a type of payment service by which individuals can send and receive money through mobile devices. It is a type of e-commerce created for the mobile devices for the ease accessibility. M-wallet is also identified as Digital wallet or e-Wallet. This study seeks to find out the relationship among Perceived usefulness (PU), Perceived Ease of Use (PEOU), Attitude Towards Use (ATU) and Behavioural Intension to Use (BINT) among the M-Wallet users and to study the mediating role of Attitude towards use have been used to evaluate mobile wallet adoption and acceptance in rural areas of India. The research was empirically tested by data collected from 450 prospective mobile wallet users, through online and offline survey. Data were analysed using SPSS and structural equation modelling (SEM) technique. The results found that there is a strong relationship and impact on Behavioural Intension to Use by the independent variables. Finally, the researchers have provided suggestions and recommendations for future research.

Motivations for Electronic Banking Adoption in Rural Areas of India: A Quantitative Study

The main purpose of this paper is to have a look and discover the type of motivations that provoked rural peoples of India to accept and use electronic banking services. E-banking or electronic performs a vital role in the present situation of banking functionality. It will also let us know how the Government of India considers it as a main vision from the past few decades to achieve such sustainable development as well as an inclusive growth. We will also realize how increase in number of smart phone users and its utilization among every corner of rural India made it possible and an awesome ability towards adoption of electronic financial services to the un-banked and under-banked in rural areas. This paper basically covers a systematic literature overview on its evolution and their motivating factors on its adoption throughout rural India. Major conclusions drawn from various research works stated that cellular banking has a huge potential to alternate the manner of people in such areas transact and store cash. With the help of electronic banking, the banking sector all across the world is gaining a huge customer base with satisfaction and loyalty. The research has considered people from rural areas. This study was conducted to know the Motivation for adoption of electronic banking in rural areas in India, and it is found in the study that respondent says that through electronic banking customers would enjoy many benefits such as mini statement, cheque related functions, balance enquiry, etc., Through electronic banking paying and receiving amount can be done from anywhere and at any time, Electronic banking removes geographical barriers

A Survey on Flood Alert System Using IoT

Dam overflows are a constant threat throughout the year to the India. There are various methods of alerts available; such as the Emergency Broadcast System can alert a user remotely in an efficient and timely manner. The system goal of project is to provide a real- time system able to monitor sudden overflows in dam lots, addressing the concern of water damage to vehicles; creating a personal alert that could reach an end user through their mobile phone using GSM. In this case, the system defines two types of nodes sensing node and sink node. Each sensing node uses a float sensor to monitor the water levels; it will then communicate with neighboring nodes. The sink node is then responsible for sending the received data from the sensors to a control server via mobile communication network using Global System for Mobiles. Database of users which is stored on cloud and flood levels will then be processed and handled by the server, which will send users an email alert that will reach any mobile phone as a text message (SMS). India has agriculture as its primary occupation. In India of the people living in rural areas in India are dependent on agriculture. This calls for planning and strategies to use water sensibly by utilizing the advancements in science and technology. The food production needs to be increased by at least 50% for the projected population growth. Agriculture accounts for 85% of freshwater consumption globally. This leads to the water availability problem and thus calls for a sincere effort in sustainable water usage. There are many systems to save water in various crops, from basic ones to more technologically advanced ones.

An Innovative Approach to Use Solar Energy Utilising Drinking Bird Principle for Water Lifting in Rural Areas in India

One element of development gap has been scarcity of energy and power supply in the less developed areas in our country. Moreover, within prevailing energy crisis and increasing cost of power generation using fossil fuels or nuclear energy search for unconventional means has almost become an important necessity. The key to increased living standards in any community is the efficient utilization of natural resources. It is therefore, axiomatic that poorer sections of our country must get developed their energy resources to enjoy their lives. Remotely dispersed villages with population of two to three thousand lack conventional sources of energy. Providing them with electricity and other fossil fuels is uneconomical mainly because their demands are very low and many of them are remote from energy producing centres. It appears, development of small indigenous power sources would play important role in rural modernization, which, in addition to increasing agricultural production, would also help restricting migration of rural people to urban cities. Hence, an innovative approach utilising principle of the drinking bird toy has been explored for developing a device using solar energy, which is locally and cheaply available energy source in abundance, for water lifting from nearby canals, and nalas where water level is half to two meters below the ground level. The current article would discuss about the design and performance etc. of the same in detail.

Factors influencing the uptake of pulse vitamin A supplementation among children in a rural area in India: a cross sectional study

Background: The change in strategy of India’s National Program for the prevention and control of nutritional blindness due to Vitamin A deficiency during 2006, aims for all children aged 9 months to 5 years to receive biannual pulse dose of Vitamin A with a total nine mega doses of Vitamin A. Micronutrient initiative (MI) was providing technical assistance to the State Health department of Karnataka in implementing the new bi-annual strategy, in partnership with UNICEF during the period 2006 to 2010.Methods: During July 2006, the Investigator evaluated its coverage in Gulbarga district. This study assessed the factors influencing the uptake of pulse Vitamin A supplementation (VAS) among children from impoverished background. Using oral questionnaires, a total of 30 Parents (Mothers) of these children, 12 childcare workers (AWWs), 12 peripheral health workers (ANMs) were interviewed regarding barriers towards implementing this Program and assessment of the facilities (12 Anganwadi centres) were conducted.Results: Only 28% of the facility had some IEC display regarding VAS. 75% of ANMs were aware that either green leafy vegetables or fish or fruits are the main source of micronutrients. A similar number of ANMs knew that Vitamin A deficiency causes night blindness, &gt;90% of AWW had informed parents about the program during the monthly mother meetings. &lt;20% of parents were aware of the current pulse VAS program and a similar number were aware of the next round of supplementation.Conclusions: Regular interaction with families, monitoring the activities of field level health workers and supportive supervision will enable uptake of VAS Program. Future action should prioritize sub-district level units – blocks and villages, with higher concentration of poor households.

Deep Learning Predictive Models for Cognitive Radio System

Cognitive Radio (CR) was introduced to improve the utilization of Radio Frequencies (RF) that remain under-utilized by the primary users (licensee). The main idea behind CR is to allow un-licensed (secondary) users to occupy vacancies in licensed bands. However, CR mandates the secondary user to vacate the frequency band within a specified time after the primary user attempts to use the frequency band. CR does not expect the primary users to share their frequency usage schedules and hence the secondary users have to scan and predict the vacancy. The advantage for the secondary users is that they do not pay for utilization of band, if they are conformal to the CR specifications. CR is the next generation of smart communication systems. CR requires continuous monitoring of the intended RF band in the intended geographical area. This information may be used to predict spectral vacancies (white spaces). Certain bands, e.g. Analog TV bands, will have pre declared utilization schedules but in general, spectrum utilization is a random process and hence prediction can be difficult. However, Deep Learning (DL) techniques can improve the accuracy of prediction. Deep Learning techniques require large and clean data sets to work correctly. Such data sets are also necessary to compare achievable accuracy of prediction algorithms. Towards this end, we have created data sets that can be used for simulation, training and testing of CR over GSM band (890-960MHz). A typical file with two hour of observations will have about 1.2 million samples. More than 1000 sets of data samples have been captured from urban and rural areas in India. All the data sets have been cleaned to avoid instrument errors and statistical outliers. In this paper we have used these standardized data sets to perform a comparative analysis of three DL methods for CR, viz. Auto-encoder (AE), Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) and Multi Layer Perceptron (MLP). Results of the comparison are discussed.

Innovative VLE model for last-mile service delivery in rural India

The paper examines the emerging trend of VLEs (Village Level Entrepreneurs), developed by organisations/corporations in various sectors, for last-mile service delivery in remote rural areas of India. Involving rural consumers, especially women, as partners in the marketing channel, and by appointing them as micro-entrepreneurs (equivalent to a VLE), is a promising marketing channel innovation which has multiple benefits for all stakeholders. The extant literature is reviewed and VLE models adopted by eight pioneering organisations in Indian rural markets are examined after collecting data from websites and secondary sources. The common and innovative elements in each model have been identified to arrive at a conceptual model of VLE adoption which can help organisations undertake inclusive rural marketing. They can achieve the double bottom line by ensuring market penetration (economic) and empowerment of young people and women in rural communities (social) by enabling them to own micro-enterprises. Corporations can thus play a developmental role in remote rural markets, which are mostly under-served and neglected today, and thereby create shared value. The paper also introduces the concept of 'partsumer', which is closely linked to VLEs.

A study to assess the clinical profile of patients with snake bites in a tertiary care hospital

Background: Snakebite is a life-threatening medical emergency. It occurs frequently among rural people, especially those working in the fields. Most houses in rural areas of India are made of mud and have many crevices where rodents flourish. Delay in seeking medical aid or ignorance among primary care physicians about the correct treatment of snakebite is responsible for the high morbidity and mortality. Authors objective was to study the clinical profile of snake bite at a rural tertiary care centre.Methods: A hospital based cross sectional study was conducted at M S Rammaih Medical College Bangalore from June 2017 to June 2018. The incidence of Snake bite in Karnataka is 0.5% and at 95% confidence interval with Margin of error at 1% the estimated sample size was 197, but in this study author were able to collect data of 237 cases, hence all the cases were included in the study and analyzed.Results: Majority of the respondents were middle aged between 21-50 years. Around 63.3% of the respondents were male and nearly 56.2% were farmers. The incidence of snake bite of Cobra was seen in 8.9%, Krait 5.1% and viper 4.2%. Around 70% patients had no significant complications following hospitalization in our study. Around 20% had hematotoxic like ARF, DIC and local gangrene.Conclusions: Snakebite is one of the common hazards especially in rural setup as agriculture being the main occupation. Snake bite can present with various manifestations at bite sites, neurotoxicity, hematotoxicity.

“Diabetes care at doorsteps”: A customised mobile van for the prevention, screening, detection and management of diabetes in the urban underprivileged populations of Delhi

Diabetes is on the rise in India and recently shown to be increasing in the urban underprivileged. Lack of awareness of the disease, its complications, combined with lack of financial resources among the underprivileged, often results in late detection and more complications in them. To combat this, healthcare delivered at the doorstep through the use of a customised mobile medical van is a potentially attractive option.We used a customized mobile van (included trained personnel, glucose meters, fundus evaluation camera, apparatus for detection of neuropathy and foot circulation and net enabled Skype calling for remote consultation) for educating general population regarding healthy lifestyle and screening, management and intervention in patients with diabetes.The project covered 10 underprivileged areas (n, 2,31,000 people) in Delhi. Total of 24,072 individuals (10.9% of total population) attended 352 awareness sessions. A total 3,12,347 visits (included repeat visits) were carried out for screening, education and management for obesity and diabetes. During screening (n, 16,834), 2933 subjects (18.7%) had high random blood glucose levels (>200 mg/dL) and had a blood pressure averaging 127.1 ± 23.6/81.3 ± 16.6 mm of mercury (n, 16,339). A pre-post intensive lifestyle counselling for 6 months in a subset of 352 diabetic patients (of which 77.8% i.e. n, 274 were overweight/obese) showed a significant lowering in weight (p < 0.001). In addition, 292 frontline workers and 256 paramedical workers were given training regarding lifestyle and diabetes, over 20 sessions.Based on achievements of this project of spreading awareness, screening, and management of diabetes and obesity in the large number of individuals in urban underprivileged colony, we believe this project could be extended to other cities and rural areas of India, and to other developing countries as well.