Rural development in India

The Papers included in this volume were presented at the National Seminar on Rural Development held at the North-Eastern Hill Uni versity in 1978. The purpose of the Seminar was to investigate the various aspects of the problem of rural development and to focus attention on the crucial variables that need to be studied and analysed for any attempt at the development of rural areas to be successful. The Papers give us an idea of the nature and the magnitude of the problem to be tackled, and discuss the impact of a few policy measures and some development schemes implemented in different parts of the country for the benefit of rural areas.

It is not necessary to emphasize that rural development is not something extraneous to the overall scheme of planned develop ment of our economy. Nevertheless, the point bears repetition, for, even before the achievement of national independence, it has been recognized that any meaningful policy of development must of necessity give priority to programmes designed to transform our rural economy, in order to "rescue it from the morass of poverty and hunger, illiteracy and disease" into which it has been sub merged from the time of foreign domination of the country.

However, when the Five-Year Plans were formulated, the pre ference for giant-scale industries elbowed out the earlier concern for rural upliftment. It is, of course, not difficult to find the logic of this preference for large-scale industries.