Back To The Village: Ideas on Smart Villages

Villages in India are the cradle of the economic activity as migrants from 649,481 odd villages contribute to the infrastructure development of cities. However, their own villages lack basic infrastructure, forcing them to look for opportunities in cities in first place.

According to Census 2011, around 69 per cent of the country lives in rural areas. In a specific example of rural – urban divide, the ‘National Health Profile 2019’ data shows, out of 26,000 hospitals, around 21,000 were in rural areas and 5,000 in urban areas. Of the total 7.1 lakh hospital beds in the government hospitals, 2.6 lakh were in rural areas and 4.5 lakh in urban areas. This means that for 70 per cent of the population residing in rural areas, only 36 per cent of the government hospital beds are available.

Out of the all the villages, tribal areas are most underserved. While there are 1,45,000 tribal villages in the country, the data was available for only 1,17,064 villages, according to the minister’s response. A ‘tribal village’ is one where the Schedule Tribe population is more than 25 per cent.

A very high 75 per cent of tribal villages in India lack access to healthcare, around 51 per cent don’t have access to any Public Distribution System (PDS) and 52 per cent are not covered by piped water, according to the Union government (2019). Even though, 66 per cent of the villages have all weather roads, around 29 per cent of the villages do not have a mode of public transport. Of the 1, 09,888 electrified villages, 7,868 villages only have 1-4 hours of electricity availability.

In his CII Annual Session in June 2020, Mr. Nitin Gadkari said the focus of the government and industry must shift to rural areas, looking to create smart villages instead of smart cities, Union minister for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) Nitin Gadkari has said.

The minister said that the purchasing power of people in rural areas must increase for bigger industries to benefit, and the growth rate of the country to increase, adding that creation of employment in rural areas will prevent migration of laborers, potentially avoiding a crisis that has risen amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

“We have to think out of the box, and focus on economically, socially, educationally backward areas,” Gadkari said at the CII annual session on Tuesday.

“We should focus on training people in rural areas to create employment, and make smart villages instead of smart cities,” he said. “The question of migrant laborers will not arise.”

Some suggestions for sustainable rural development:

• Broadband Internet Availability
• Mobile Network Infrastructure Availability
• Water and Sanitation Infrastructure
• Robust Road Infrastructure
• Modern Education
• Health and Fitness Infrastructure
• Cost-Effective Energy Infrastructure
• Entrepreneurship Impetus
• MSMEs and Industries in Rural Areas
• Agritech Adoption
• Financial Inclusion through Innovative Products
• Ecological Uplift via Education and Training
• Handicraft Promotion to Ensure margins reach the creators
• Development of Cooperatives in different sectors to deliver at scale
• Job opportunities creation locally to tackle Under-Employment

Developing for Smart Village is the biggest opportunity in enabling reverse migration, reducing the burden on city infrastructure and balanced regional development.

On the one hand, the villages are currently at a very crucial point in their roadmap and on the other hand there is remote working that is gaining acceptance rapidly. Remote working can be defined as carrying on a company’s tasks remotely. Remote workers are the knowledge centers of the cities and their value in villages can be immense.

Some trends that give impetus to this cause of the villages is when Sridhar Vembu announced Zoho Corporation will move its offices to rural areas in the interest of its employees.

“Amid looming concerns over the impact of Covid -19 on the information technology companies, Zoho Corporation on unveiled recently its plans for setting up a slew of small rural offices run by 20 to 30 people to enable around 70% of its workforce to continue working from home even after the lockdown is completely lifted.”

Major IT and ITES companies in India, have a large base of their employees from rural areas and such a move by corporates to move back to villages, will help in developing the aspirations, infrastructure and skills in the local economy.

Some Ideas as seeds to ‘back-to-the-village’ Strategies could be:

• Remote Working Push: Large corporates could sanction teams to migrate back to their homes and work remotely from their village. The first step to winning over a challenge is to be present. This way knowledge and skills will reach back to the rural areas.

• Mentor of Change for Villages: If mentorswere asked to move to a village, the Impact of even one mentor for villages would be enough to drive aspirations and enterprise in the right direction.

• Certified BPOs in villages: They will create additional job opportunities and the cost of operating the BPOs will substantially come down.

• Building Roads and Sanitation Infrastructure in Villages: In the time of a depression, the paramount way to speed up recovery is to drive rural infrastructure development with roads, asset building and sanitation infrastructure as the immediate action items.

• Healthcare Services Push: Primary healthcare in villages is still a long road to tread, the opportunity is large not only for healthcare services but also for the jobs it creates.

• Enabling Panchayats to award support and recognition to new business ideas: A ‘panchayat’ is a trusted authority that needs to be enabled and empowered to support local businesses and give impetus to entrepreneurial endeavors. Enabling them to support rural startups will be helpful.  

• Using Defunct Government Buildings as Skill Centers: There are a number of buildings, constructed by the government for large infrastructure projects, such as Hydel Power Projects, in rural areas not being used anymore. The projects they were made for are now completed and handed over. These assets can be used as Rural Skill Centers.

• Go To Market Support: Speed-up the proliferation of direct to consumer platforms for Rural Produce. This could be done via training the women of the households to educate the men on how to sell on ecommerce platforms direct to wholesalers.

• Nationalized Awards for Rural Innovations: If there is an award for rural innovation at a national level, it could accelerate the drive for innovation.

• The Rural Data Center at the national level: To make endeavors at rural level sustainable, research and data mining, at national level, regularly is necessary. A Data Center for rural studies so as make latest primary research data available on the Indian Rural Landscape will be needed eventually to drive rural development.

• Provide loans through MFIs and NBFCs: Cash is the biggest challenge, a loan could provide the much needed liquidity in this time of recession for local businesses to start.

• A national portal for agriculture technologies: This will drive interest in increasing the efficiency of the crop yield.

• Removing bottlenecks and rewarding for opening of Village Schools: A good education can motivate migrants to contribute to their village rather than contributing to the cities.

These could be some ideas to leverage on the national policy frameworks already in place through the Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana. The vision of SAGY is an integrated village development plan, encompassing Personal, Human, Social, and Economic dimensions.

If the experience of the village becomes at par with the cities while keeping the culture, traditions and important local characteristics that define the identities of villages alive, we have won half the battle. The rewards are far greater than the effort needed to drive the actions in this regards.