Abstract:

More than 70% of Indian population lives in rural areas and most of rural people depend on agriculture and agricultural allied industries. As rural development is the prerequisite for overall development of India, there is a great need to formulate effective rural development strategies to improve quality of life in rural areas, self-employment to rural people and raising profits to the farmers to improve the Indian economy. The govt. of India is providing a lot of funds to promote rural economy and industry, indicating that the availability of funds is not the only factor for rural development. But the key factor seems to be potential from the funding ministries / state govt. is that they should design proper schemes and should make delivery system effective to use the funds properly and successfully in order to move the schemes into desired outcomes. To achieve growth, rural area needs productive activities which produce rural exports - goods and services that can be traded outside rural areas. Moreover, a clear cut policy for rural industrialization should be evolved to address the possible pitfalls in the way of rural industrialization. The special efforts should be made to strengthen the economy of marginal and small farmers, artisans, unskilled workers etc. so that they can also contribute in the developmental process. This would require strengthening programmes related to skill development and assisting them with credit and market support. In addition to this, it is also essential to create awareness among rural peoples about govt.'s development programmes. Besides these, about 60 percent artisans are still carrying out their occupation in traditional primitive method due to non-up-gradation of technology in rural industries. Thus, there is still more crucial need for research and development (R & D) in rural industrial sector. For encouraging rural industrialization, it is essential to provide credit facilities at concessional rate to rural entrepreneurs.

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