Defining rural development

Rural development

•Rural Development is a process by which series of changes take place within a given rural population with the aim of improving the living condition of the population of the rural community.

  It is a set of policies with two main goals:

•Encourage production and wellbeing of the rural majority.

•Ensure adequate production that will enable the uplifting of the development of rural areas.

The term rural development means “ change in physical , economical , and socio-cultural environment and to alleviate poverty.

•World bank has defined it as “ development of rural poor , small farmers , peasants , tenants , landless labor etc.”

•Rural development is the process of enabling rural people to undertake development programs through the maximum utilization of their local talents and resources and with the minimum dependence on outside assistance, so that they lead happier and better life.

 

Need & Importance of Rural Development

•Pakistan is predominantly an agricultural country.

•At present most of its population is village based.

•Rural development is vital importance for improving the lot of rural people who form the bulk of our population.

•The population is growing at very rapid rate in Pakistan.

•Unfortunately the Agri. productivity has not kept pace with the growing population in the country.

•This inconsistent growth between these two aspects of economy has affected the total national economy.

•The development of rural areas has assumed great importance for the creation of equilibrium between population growth and means of subsistence/survival.

•Presently most of the facilities of modern life of living are being enjoyed by the urban people.

•Rural people have been deprived of these facilities.

•There is an urgent need to do away with this.

•Rural development is the only solution of this problem.

•The absence of basic facilities in rural sector makes difficulties for technical experts , technicians , medical men, educators and social workers who are familiar to urban services to live and work in rural environment.

•It implies therefore that the gap between rural and urban environment and living conditions needs to be bridged.

•This can be done through rural regeneration.

•The trend of migration from rural to urban area needs to be checked.

•This can easily be done through the balance development of both rural and urban areas.

• In our total administrative and economic structure, village has got the position of basic unit.

•The improvement of basic unit is an essential pre-requisite to the over all improvement of all the units of our administration and economy.