Barriers in Rural Development

Author(s): V M Rao
Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 18, No. 27 (Jul. 2, 1983), pp. 1177-1179, 1182-
1185, 1187-1190
Published by: Economic and Political Weekly
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 SPECIAL ARTICLES

Barriers in Rural Development

V M Rao

Two prominent themes dominate current debates on problems of rural development in Indi
that rural development ought to receive higher priority and larger resources than it hàs received
second , that a decentralised pattern of organisation for formulating and implementing rural de
programmes needs to be evolved.
Viewing development as a process in which dissimilar communities and groups of peop
new economic opportunities , it is interesting to ask the question as to how this process would w
out in the prospective rural context.
This paper considers a relatively limited aspect of the question, viz, the factors which are l
hinder the even spread of the development process across a typical planning area like a district '
It examines factors attributable to the characteristic features of the local level rural economies i
that, while the author's data and illustrations are drawn from field studies done in the single di
Tumkur in Karnatakû, his findings öoutd be taken as Having a fair measure of generality beyon
area.

THERE are two prominent themes We use the mode of description economies. However, the group that
in the current debates in India on and narration - rather than formal we have kept in mind in preparing
the problems of rural development. theoretical-cum-statistical analysis - the piaper is the group of investiga-
First, there is a- persistent feeling since the prevailing economic theo- tors, functionaries and organisations
that rural development ought to re- ries seem to have no models focus- currently engaged in drawing up and
ceive higher priority and larger re- ed on the factors noticed in the implementing local-level plans. We
sources than it has received until field. Our findings, hence, could be feel that the process of local-level
now in the Indian development plans. of substantive interest to economists planning needs the support of an
Second, there are active endeavours engaged in developing relevant mo- information-cum-monitoring system
to evolve a decentralised pattern of dels for the analysis of the structure capable of reflecting the uneven per-
organisation for formulating and im- and functioning of dispersed rural colation of differènt development
plementing rural development pro-
grammes. In the years to come much
Table 1 : Comparative Features of Isolated Villages - All Households
larger amounts of resources than
hitherto are likely to set allocated to Item Village Village All Simple
rural development programmes,' with
a growing part of these amounts
Production Assets
being left to the decisions and ac-
Per cent of HHš having:
tions of local-level bureaucrats, or- Irrigation welk - 18 ,17
ganisations and rural groups. View- Fumpsets - 3 10
ing development as a process in Milch cattle 13 57 34
Milch Buffalo 12 19 17
which dissimilar communities and
Poultry 48 34 20
groups of people react to new econo- Sheep 6 7 9
mic opportunities, it is interesting to Goat 20 13 14
ask the quéstion as to how this pro- Modern Input
cess would work itself out in the
Per cent of farmers using fertiliser 36 4 40
prospective rural context, lihis is a
large question and the purpose of Housing
this paper is to consider a relativelv Per cent of Kutcha houses 82 99 52
limited aspect of the question, viz, School Attendance
the factors which are likely to hinder
Per cent of boys (5 to 15) attending
the even spread of the development school: v 24 27 61
process across a typical planning area Per cent of girls (5 t
like a district or a block. We look school: 5 11 34
for factors attributable tó the charac- Medical treatment
teristic features of the local level ru- Per cent of sick treated by:
ral economies in India so that, while (a) Government Doctor 88 55 55
(b) Private Doctor 7 28
our data and illustrations are drawn
(c) Traditional Doctor - 35 4
from the field studies done in the
Access to Institutional Finance
single district of Tumkur in Kařna-
taka, our findings could be taken as Per cent of HHs reporting:
(a); Co-operative loans - 4 14
having a fair measure of generality (b) ♦. Bank loans 1 2 3
beyond the study area. ! I IUI. ' I .1,11! ... I " I I ..."

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July 2, 1983 ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL WEEKLY

Table 2 : Comparative FeXtures of Isolated .Villages Medium about 20 miles or more from the
Cültívatqss ] nearest town. Neither of them had
a large village having 1,000 or more
Item Village Village All' Sample population in their immediate vicini-
А В Villages ty. It occurred to us that these vil-
Production Assets lages should show whether rural
isolation operates as a barrier to de-
1er cent of HHs having:
Irrigation wells - 26 38 velopment, and, if it does, which are
Pump sets - 2 26 the components affected noticeably
Milch cattle 23 72 53 Dy this factor. Considering the prox-
Milch Buffalo 26 28 37
imity of the Tumkur district to the
Poultry 74 56 24
Sheep 16 12 20 metropolis of Bangalore, it was in-
Goat 45 23 20 deed a surprise for us to find the
Modern Input two villages providing suggestive in-
Per cent of farms using fertilisers , 65 7 58 dications of effects of isolation. Ap-
parently, isolation as a barrier in
Housing development inheres in the rural en-
Per cent of Kutcha houses 68 100 40 vironment in general and is not a
School Attendance feature confined only to the fàr-oiï
Per cent of boys (5 to 15) attending nooks and corners visited by the
school 23 27 76 anthropologists.
Per cent òf girls (5 to 15) atte
school 10 9 41 At the other end of the spectrum is
a large village - almost a town -
Medical treatment
which the Government agencies and
Per cent of sick treated by : banks find very congenial for launching
(a) Government Doctor 80 47 55 the wide variety of programmes entrus-
(b) Private Doctor 12 - 29
(c) Traditional Doctor ; - 41 4 ted to them. It has been our experience
that such focal rural points provide
Access to Institutional Finance
useful insights on the percolation of
Per cent of HHs reporting : development in the hinterland of the
(a) Co-operative loans - 7 25 focal points and on the absorption of
(b) Bank loans - 2 6
development by the local weak and
poor sections. One of the villages stu-
components isolation and couldproviding
tempt them to conti- died inclues
some detail in the
to Tumkur
the
underlying factors. nue with that state in ThepreferencemainProject is exactly
purpose of the type described
of
the paper is to the hazards
to show of seeking links
thatwith above.
an It isinforina-
a hobli centre having about
tive perspective the larger on
economy the4
about which they
un900 households
evenness with a junior college,
of
rural development know little. Second, the canlinkages a be
bank branch,
builta rice mill andud
a saw
with simple and easily collectable that emerge in the course of the mill located in the village. The village
items of data which could be assem- growth of the larger economy are even has a direct bus service linking
bled, processed and perused at tne likely to be 'imposed' linkages disturb-it with Bangalore.
local-level itself. Second, we propose ing the settled modes of living rather It seems possibile to discern three
to share our conviction that local- than helping the villages in getting general factors by considering the ex-
level planning» by itself, is no answer integrated with the growth processes.ample of this village. First, there is a
to the problems of slow and uneven While we are not in a position with noticeable drop in certain indicators of
rural development. Rural develop- our data to look at the full picture development as one moves from the
ment needs a complementary set ot of the unsettled phase in the econo-
focal village to the villages in its neigh-
infrastructural, institutional and or- mic life of the villages initiated by
bourhood. This may be called the fac-
ganisational changes capable of acti- the growth in the larger economy, tor it of non-percolation of development.
vating the human factor in the deve- is possible for us to think of a num- In fact, non-percolation of develop-
lopment process. This point also ber of typical cases of villages and ment could be taken as just another
emerges clearly as an implication oírural grbups illustrating the diffe-
manifestation of the factor of isolation
the findings presented in the paper. rent dimensions of barriers to deve- mentioned above but we prefer to
lopment operating in the rural area. distinguish the two since the former
These are described below.
Enumeration of Factors brings out clearly the limitations of
The investigations of the Tumkur strategies for rural development rely-
The proposition with which we Project conducted over the period ing on spatial concepts like growth
1977 to 1982, covered a total of 245 centres. Second, the focal village also
start: is thait the Jagricultu re-base d
villages - a 10 per cent sample of reveals the factors making for limited
village communities living at the sub-
sistence level develop minimal link- all the inhabited villages in the dis- and partial absorption of development
trict. Two among the sample villa- by the poor households. There is a
ages with the larger economy be-
ges were noticed to have the foliow- clear indication that those lacking as-
yond their neighbourhood. When
' ing features. Each was a small vil- sets, i e, having a weak économie base
the larger economy begins to grow,
this lack of linkages poses a barrier lage containing less than a hundredremain below the threshold of viability
to the villages in two ways. First, households. Each was located away despite being located in the focal vil-
the state of subsistence in relative from the main road at a distance of lage. Interestingly, even tbe low caste

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 ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL WEEKLY July 2, 1983

Table 3: Comparative Features of Vllages Adjoining Focal Village - Our attempt, in a word, is to view
Aix Households rural development as an economic pro-
cess of interaction between two un-
Item Adjoining Villages Focal equal entities - on the one hand, a
: ç ' 5 Village large number of relatively small and
dispersed villages and, on the other,
Production Assets the larger economy which is the do-
Per cent of IlHs having: minant entity setting the direction and
Milch cattle 31 44 12 pace of the process. The data collect-
Milch' Buffalo 09 26 12
ed in the Tumkur Project provide
Poultry 61 v 64 19
Sheep 6 v 30 2 findings on the unevenness <Jf rural
Coat 56 58 3 development which could be òf parti-
cular interest to the local level orga-
Modern Input
nisations and functionaries implement-
Per cent of farms using fertilisers 94 94 , • 88
ing rurál development programmes. The
Housing factors enumerated above enable us to
Per cent of Kutcha houses ' 50 86 18 bring the findings together in a mean-
v Literacy level ingful pattern of wider generality.
Per cent Male* literates 49 44 75 Isolation
Per cent Female literates 12 8 42
School Attendance We now present the comparative
Per cent of boys (5 to 15) attending features of the two villages selected as
school 88 76 78 examples of relatively isolated villages
Per cent of girlsin the
(5 to
study area. It may be15)
mention- att
school 37 38 72
ed that each of them consisted of 85
Medical treatment households with a little over 90 per
Per cent of sick treated by: cent of them deriving their livelihood
(a) Government Doctor 26 47 67 in agriculture as compared to 85 per
(b) Private Doctor 67 35 31 cent in the case of all sample villages
(c) Traditional Doctor - 1 1
taken together. Interestingly, in one
Access to Institutional Finance of the two, Vokkaligas <a dominant
Per cent of HHs reporting: " caste in South Karnataka) were nearl>
(a) Co-operative loans 50 28 13 60 per, cent of total households while
(b) Bank loans 8 6 4 7 in the other two-thifrds of households
Diet . * belonged to Scheduled caste/tribe
Per cent of HHs reporting * reguter , groups. In the tables and discussion
consumption of: below, the former is referred to as
(a) Milk 69 40 70 'Village A' and the latter as 'Village
(b) Vegetables 39 37 72
B' Village A had a larger component
Mass Media Use 4< of labour households (20 per cent) and
Per cent of HHs reyporting: business fcnd trade households (4 per
(a) Radio habit 22 7 38 cent) as compared to the position in
(b) Newspaper habit 3 1 20 this respect in Village В (8 per cent
labour households and only one busi-
status - a sociological feature - the weak tendency in the rural econo- ness and trade household). Neither
seems capable of being interpreted as my towards growth outside agriculture village had households belonging to
an additional economic handicap suf- as the factor of non-diversification. the salaried group who, in the rural
fered by the рог households belonging This feature is, partly, an outcome of context, are mostly Government em-
to the lower castes. We refer to this the fact that in agriculture-based com- ployees.
handicap as the factor of social exclu-munities living at the subsistence level For obtaining a comparative pers-
sion. the demand for non-agricultuiul pro- pective on the isolated villages, we
The four factors of uneven rural ducts and services would be limited have selected a few simple indicators
development noted above arise from and stagnant. But thè interesting pointwhich may be expected to be sensitive
two basic structural features of the about the Indian rural economy is that to the level of development and to the
rural economy. The influence of these often even when agriculture grows and links outside (Table 1). Housing and
factors may be expected to wane over a section of rural population moves school attendance are the two indica-
time if the growth in the larger eco- above the subsistence level litťe sti- tors showing substantial gap between
nomy were to be accompanied by anmulus is derived, as a rule, by the the isolated villages and the villages in
adequate increase in the rural economic local non-agricultural activities. Thegeneral.1 This is also true to an extent
opportunities - i e, production and explanation needs to be sought in the of the indicators of access to institu-
tional finance though these indicatory
service activities - not linked to land.impact of the markets linking the local
On the other hand, our findings indi- rural economy with the larger econo-have very low levels in the case of
cate the position to be quite the op- my. We refer* to this feature as the villages in general. Thirdly, no consis-
posite with etan the prevailing non- depressive market penetration of the tent gaps are feeen in relation to indi-
agricultürál activities showing little rural areas occurring in the course ofcators of production assets and inputs.
signs of economic viability. We call the growth in the larger economy. Finally, the indicators of medical
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 July 2, 1983 ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL WEEKLY

Тли г. 4 : Comparative Features of Vllages Adjoining Focal Village - village economy. Indicators given in
Medium and Large Culttvatqes Tables 1 and 2 can be taken as pro-
viding only a clue needing further in-
Item Adjoining Villages Fòcaj vestigation to bring out the economic
consequences of rural isolation.

Production Assets Non-Percolation of Development

Per cent of HHs having:
Milch cattle 29 58 37 We now move to the focal village
Milch Buffalo 68 26 51 and the two adjoining villages in its
Рои! try 61 78 28 neighbourhood. Village С is a small
Sheep 7 50 6
Goat 50 72 4 village consisting of 36 households
located at a distance of about 2 kilo-
Modern Input metres from the focal village. Village
Per cent of farms using fertilisers 100 99 96 D is a middle-sized village of 200
Housing households located further away at a
Per cent of Kutcha houses 3.3 81 8 distance of about 4 kilometres. Both
the villages consist almost entirely of
Literacy level cultivators as compared to the mixed
Per cent Male literates 81 44 88 composition of the focal village having
Per cent Female literates 44 12 67
in about equal proportions, the three
School Attendance groups - (i) cultivators, (ii) labourers
and artisans, (iii) business and salari-
Per cent of boys (5 to 15) attending
school 100 77 72 ed. -Further, village С was seen to be
Per cent of girls a single-caste
(5 to 15)
village of Nayaks (a att
school 62 48 75
backward group included in Scheduled
Medical treatment tribes) while Village D has many
Per cent of sick treated by: castes with a substantial component of
(a) Government Doctor 10 46 65 Scheduled castes.
(b) Private Doctor 90 42 31
The main contrast observed in the
(c) Traditional Doctor - 2 - -
field was that while the households in
Access to Institutional Finance the focal village ihave a number of
Per cent of HHs reporting: features typical of the urban way of
(a) Co-operative loans 67 36 51
(b) Bank loans 17 8 22 living, this is not true to the same
extent of the adjoining villages. It is
Diet found that the contrast stands out all
Per cent of HHs reporting regular the more sharply when indicators re-
consumption of: lating to these features are added to
(a) 'Milk 100 60 96
those considered in Table 1 and 2.
(b) Vegetables 100 39 86
The indicators that we add cover
Mass Media Use
(i) levels of literacy amoung the males
Per cent of HHs reporting : and the females, (ii) indicators of diet
.fa) Radio habit 50 8- 73
(b) Newspaper habit 17 - 45 and (iii) indicators of mass media use.
Interestingly, the two adjoining villages
show fairly consistent differences bet-
Table 5: Composition of Target a Scheduled caste village - and the ween themselves suggestive, plausibly,
Groups (Per Cent to Total Number percentage of sick treated by the tradi-
of the unequal percolation of the im-
of Target Group Households) tional doctors. An impressionistic inter-
pact of the focal village though our
pretation of Table 1 is that the factor
data are not definitive enough to at-
of rural isolation works as a depressive
4>
tempt to trace these differences to the
л 2? influence on the aspirations for higher
differing features of the two villages
So ьо
5* л to _ « л
_ ьо
levels of living (the gap in>* housing)
noted above.
§ gj* ^ and on the incentives to invest in
human capital (gap in schooling). This The indicators for the two adjoining
interpretation gains further in villages
plausi-and the focal village are pre-
Labourers without land 30 19 sented in Table 3 (covering all house-
Labourers with land 13 6 bility when we look at Table 2 pre-
holds) and Table 4 (covering the me-
Art'sans 11 8 senting the indicators for the medium
Marginal cultivators* 33 33 dium and large cultivators belonging
cultivators (having holdings from 5
Small- cultivators 13 34 to the rural upper strata). Let us first
Total 100 100 acres % to 25 acres), a group belonging
take note of indicators reflecting what
to the rural* upper strata.2 It could be
may be called the continuing 'гигаГ-
seen from /Table 2 that the gaps bet-
ness of the adjoining villages despite
treatment are weenthethe isolated
only villages ones
and the vil-showing
the growth of a village in close proxi-
high values in lages all in the
general follow
villages the same pat-
mityincluding
- the focal village - into al-
the isolated villages tern as shownexcepting
by Table L If isolation that the
most a town. These are indicators of
private doctors tends to weaken the
seems to economic
remainaspira- away
housing, literacy levels among males
fîOto the latter tions and that
and incentives, there
is obviously is a appears
and females, school, attendance among
to be a link between basis factor affectingthethe courseVillage
of themass mediaВ
girls, - diet. Here,
use and
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 ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL WEEKLY July 2, 1983

Table 6 : Comparative Features of Target Group Households in the Weak Economic Base
Focal Village
We have so far considered the fac-
Target Groups Landless Labourers tors making for inter- village dispari-
ties in development. A fuller picture
Focal All Sample Focal All Sample
ViLage- Villages Villages Villages of the disparities has also to take note
of the intra-vilJage sources of dispari-
Production Assets ties. An earlier paper prepared in the
Per cent .of H Hs having Tumkur Project provides an account of
Milch cattle 15 30 4 8 variations in the selected indicators of
MUch buffaloes 12 11 5 3 development across the hierarchy of the
Poultry 24 20 22 10
Sheep 3 6 12 rural strata from the large, cultivators
Goat 4 13 4 6 to the landless labourers.3 The purpose
Modern Input of this paper is to look at the strata-
Per cent of farms using fertilisers 81 32 Not applicable wise indicators from a different pers-
pective. The question that we ask is:
How do the rural lower strata - viz ,
Per cent of kutcha houses 24 58 32 71
School Attendance
the 'target groups' consisting of lab-
ourers, artisans and marginal and
Per cent of boys (5 to 15) small cultivators - in the focal village
attending school 72 50 61 42
Per cent of girls (5 to 15) compare with the target groups in the
attending school 65 25 68 17 study area as a whole? In other words,
Medical treatment does the location in a focal village
Per cent of sick treated by: help the rural lower, strata to better
(a) Government doctor 67 55 69 54 absorb development than the corres-
(b) Private doctor 31 25 27 23 ponding strata elsewhere? <The pre-
(c) Traditional doctor 1 4 15 sumption with which we start js that,
Access to Institutional Finance despite the favourable location, a
Per cent of HHs reporting: household with a weak economic or
(a) Co-operative loans 14 11 -

(b) Bank loans 8 2 - - asset base in a focal village ma f fare

Diet
no better than a similar household
elsewhere.
Per cent of HHs reporting:
regular consumption of : There is some support for this pre-
(a) Milk 58 31 40 24 sumption m Table 5, presenting the
(b) Vegetables 67 25 64 20 composition of target groups in the
Mass Media Use focal village and in all the sample
Per cent of HHs reporting: villages taken together.
(a) Radio habit 26 7 12 2 The labourers from 43 per cent of
(b) Newspaper habit 9 13 Negligible the total target group households in
the focal village (25* per cent in all
again, there is a fair measure could also beofa source
con- of large and sample villages taken together) -while
sistency between the pattern of gaps
persistent disparities between the focal the small cultivators are only ДЗ per
revealed by "all households' and the village und the adjoining villages. In cent (34 per cent in aîl Sample villages
pattern shown by the 'medium and particular, the dimensions reflecting the taken together). Thus, in a sense, the
large* cultivators. There is also the changeover of a community from the target groups in the focal village are
indication that the gaps are, by and rural into the semi-urban seem to have poorer than those elsewhere. It would
large, * more marked in the case of vil- meagre percolation across even the indeed be true that a focal village
lage D as compared to village C. neighbouring communities. We have would attract many subsistence-seekers
not quite explained why this should be but it could also be that many of those
Apparently, the focal village does
provide a measure of stimulus to the so but the findings in Tables 3 und 4, who ccme remain on the bottom rungs
in the minimum, should make one of the rural hierarchy.
economy of the adjoining villages.
wary of the- strategies seeking to bring Since the cultivators háve a land
Compared to the isolated villages, the
about rural development by putting upbase and artisans some skills, the land-
adjoining villages show convincingly
better performance in relation to indi-a few focal villages on the rural map. less labourers lacking both form a
cators of production assets, modern in- While such strategies may have quick particularly interesting group to ob-
puts and access to - institutional fin- and substantial impact on the produč- serve the limits on absorption of deve-
ance. It also needs to be noted that tion and resource-use aspects of thelopment imposed by the weak econo-
rural economy, they may do little to mic base of a household. Hence, in
the adjoining villages register an im- ^
change the perceptions and attitudesTable 6 presenting the selected indi-
provement in the indicators of housing
and school attendance, the charac- of rural people inhibiting the develop-cators of development, the data are
ment process. For example, compared given separately for the landless lab-
teristic weak points of the isolated
villages. to the focal village, the villages in ourers in addition to those pertaining
neighbourhood seem to , be puttingto the target groups as a whole. It is
Considering the total picture, the much less value on information (mass evident from Table в that the com-
point that we would like to emphasise media use), education (school atten- ponents of development relating to
is that the growth of a focal village, dance among girls) and better style ofwhat may broadly be called the levels
while stirring up the villages around, living (housing and diet). of living - viz, housing, education,.

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 July 2, 1983 ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL WEEKLY

Table 7: Comparative Featubes of тце Scheduled Caste Households in differences may be expected to lndicáie
the Focal Village what may be called the net effect
of the scheduled caste status on a
Item Labourers Labourers Marginal rural target group household. It is only
without Land with Land Cultivators
fair to mention that we are working
SCs Non-SCs SCs Xon-SCs SCs Non-SCs with very broadly defined caste-groups
and, hence, the results would be more
Total No of Households: 73 89 39 36 31 146 in the nature of plausible guesswork
Production Asseti than firm findings. At the same time,
Percentage of HI Is having such comparisons would be feasible
Milch Animal 6 11 18 29 29 36 only in large villages, like the one
Poultry 25. 19 28 14 58 23 under consideration, since the genera]
Sheep - 2 3 6 3 3 run of villages would usually have only
Goat 1 7 - - - 6
a few scheduled caste households,
Modern Input
mostly labourers. The focal village also
Percentage of cultivators
permits the comparison to be made
using fertilisers . - - 36 81 58 94
within a specific development context
Housing
which would not be true when a large
Percentage of kutcha number of small villages are aggregated
houses "32 32 41 17 2Ü 20
to get sufficient number of scheduled
School Attendance
caste households for comparison.
Percentage of boys (5-15) Table 7 gives the results of compari-
attending school 66' 64 76 67 63 78
son. A word about the last indicator
Percentage of girls (5-15)
attending school 61 66 52 70 50 65 in Table 7 which is an additional item.
It i¿ based on the number of house-
w Access to Institutional Finance
Percentage of households holds reporting at least one visit to
reporting Bangalore during the period of one
(a) Co-operative loans ^ - - 8 11 3 21 montfr prior to the date of survey.
(b) Bank loans : - - 3 U 7 11 Since the focal village has a direct bus
* Diet .
service to Bangalore and many in the
Percentage of HHs
vllage frequently visit Bangalore, this
'reporting consumption
of milk 8 65 28 61 10 78 seemed to us a good indicator to add.
Mass Media Use It is usual in common parlance to
Percentage of IIHs reporting: interpret the term 'Scheduled Castes'
(a) Radio habit 10 14 „ 10 28 19 34 as indicative of a group of people
(b) Newspaper habit 3 3 8 - 3 11 located - status-wise and, often, even
Contact with Bangalore physically - beyond the periphery of
Percentage of HHs reporting the main society. Interestingly, this is
visit to Bangalore 8 19 13 25 26 36 precisely the interpretation suggested
by Table 7, viz , the scheduled castes
health, diet and mass some interesting
media clues useto - the; relative
doare worse off as compared to even the
reach the target groups, asscheduled
positions of the wellcaste asandthe corresponding target group households
landless labourers, the to nona-scheduled
Jarger extent
. caste households . belonging, caste-wise, to the main
in the focal village within and the thetargetmargins
groups. There in were
society. It is, obviously, necessary to
many cases are' quite substantial.
162 scheduled caste households inThis
the bring into the picture an additional
is also true of the focal adoption
village of whichof 73 modern
were landless
factor, besides 'weak economic base',
input though the specific item that labourers, 39 labourers with Jand, 31 to account for this divergence. This is
we have taken, viz, fertilisers, is not marginal cultivators and the rest dis- the reason for including 'social exclu-
applicable to the landless labourers. tributed in small numbers among other sion' in our list of factors behind
However, and this is important there economic groups. Curiously, within uneven rural development. At the
is no indication that the target groups each of the first three groups ac- moment, we can only give the factor
in the fòcal village do better in rela«- counting for about 90 per cent an evocative label without being able
' tion to acquisition of production assets of the scheduled caste households, to specify the underlying economic
or have better access to institutional fairly substantial gaps in indicators of
relationships and mechanisms. There is,
finance. In fact, the position in .this development were noticed as between however, a hint in Table 7 of weak-
respect appears to be as weak in thethe scheduled caste households and the nesses in contacts with the larger
focal village äs in thé sample villages non-scheduléd caste households.4 Owing economy (indicators of modern input,
in gerieral. Thus, apparently, the focal to the small number of scheduled caste access to institutional finance, radio
village - • a typical growth centre -households, the comparison could not habit and contact with Bangalore) and,
enables the rural -poor to ¿hare in some be éxtëndéd tö other economic groups. possibly, of a stronger hold of tradi-
components of development but it does It would be realised that comparing tional ways of life (housing, diet and
not quite have the thrust, helping thèthe _ scheduled castes with the non- schooling of girls). The one escape route
poor to become ' 'viable4 'economic left to the scheduled castes is to move
entities.
scl^eduled castes within each . target
group amounts fo comparing the twoout to the urban areas and it is, pro-
SociAt ' Exclusion bably, this awareneae whieh prompts
caste-groups holding their economic
them t« achieve parity with the other
status roughly constant. Hence, thèse
Our data on the focal' village provide

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ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL WEEKLY Jul>' 2> 1983

Table 7-A: Ownirship of Land economic prospects of an activity as

perceived by the rural households.
Caste ^ First, an activity perceived as having
Hindu SC ST Muslim ^ Total limited or diminishing prospects would
tend to lose to other occupatons the
Households 67 21 7 5 100
young adult males - i e, males in the
Dry land 79 12 7 2 100
Wet land 89 4 4 3 100 age group 16 to 35 - belonging to
Garden land 90 4 5 1 100 the households pursuing the activity
Total land owned: 82 10 6 2 100 Second, such an activity would attract
few households from castes other, than
Table 7-B: Distribution by Main Occupation the traditional caste corresponding to
the activity. These are the two simple
Caste indicators we propose to use to judge,
Hindu SC ST Muslim Total very roughly and indirectly, the econo-
mic viability of the non-agricultural
Labourers 9 38 24 22 17 activities. In the case of a few activi-
Artisans 4 4 1 13 5
Marginal cultivators 21 26 23 20 22 ties, it was observed in the field that
Smaïl cultivators 25 18 24 12 -3 they -were to an extent activities pur-
Medium cultivators 29 8 17 9 23 sued in the nearby towns and to bring
Large cultivators 2 1 - I in this feature we have included in
Business and trade professionals 3 1 2 8 2
and salaried 5 2 5 13 5 Table 8 (last three columns) the distri-
Others 2 3 3 3 2 bution of households in three groups
Total according to the distance of the village
from the nearest town.
castes in the matter of schooling of - are left with few other develop- Let us now turn to Table 8 to see
boys. how the non-agricultural activities fare
mental opportunities to turn to. Even
The usual basis of 'social exclusion'more important, it could be the con- in the study area. Suppose we adopt
in a rural setting is the unequal accesstinuing dependence on agriculturethe norm that for an activity to be
which is the root cause for the persis-considered as a major activity there
of different social groups to agricultural
land. This comes out quite clearly in tence of perceptions and attitudes, should at least be one household with
Table 7A showing the shares of four identified above as giving to rural that activity for every two or three
social groups - caste Hindus, Schedul- isolation and non-percolation. The villages, i e, a total of about 100 house-
ed castes, Scheduled tribes and Muslims household data collected in the Tum- holds in a sample of 245 villages.
- in the total number of households kur Project provide interesting insights Judged by this norm which' appears
enumerated in Tumkur Project (ex- into the prevailing state of non-agricul- reasonable to us^only three production
cluding few negligibly smail groups tura} production and service activities activities - Tailor, Carpenter and
like Jâins and Christians) and theirin the study area. Selected indicators Blacksmith - and three service activi-
shares in the total agricultural land reflecting the viability of these activi- ties-Mason, Dhobi and Stone cut-
owned by these households. It is ties are presented in Table 8. ter

obvious that the Scheduled castes and of being major activities.

Out of a little over 30,000 house- these, the tailoring seem
the Muslims have much less access to
land than the Caste Hindus. However,
holds residing in the 245 sample the lone activity having wh
as can be seen from Table 7B, there
villages covered in the Tumkur Project be called the 'right' feature
field investigation, only 1,110 house- low component of young adu
is a significant difference in the res-
holds. ie, less than 4 per cent of the taking to other occupations,
ponse of the two groups to this cons- households reported a non-agricultural
traint. While the Scheduled castes settle
caste composition and fairl
for a subordinate position within agri- production/service activity as the main distribution in the distance gro
culture, the Muslims show larger pre- occupation of the household. This low no crowding near towns. Mason
sence in the non-agricultural occupa-percentage itself reflects the limited the first two features bu
role of such activities in the rural obviously, they find their wor
tions __ like artisan áfctivities, trade
economy but the features of the 1,110 in or near towns than in villag
and professional and salaried occupa-
tions. Obviously, the Scheduled castes
households, noted in Table 8, are oí carpenters have a broad caste-b
face 'social exclusion' of much harsher
some help in forming activity-wise they show some crowding, n
assessment of economic viability of the towns and, more important, ne
kind than that faced by the minority
rural non-agricultural production and of the young adult males in the
groups like Muslims. service activities. As Table 8 shows, ter households are seen to have
the activities enumerated are 13 in to other occupations, hardly a
Non-Diversification
number - 7 production activities and the economic strength of the
As we noted earlier above, a major б service activities. They are arranged The blacksmiths have a goo
structural weakness of the rural in Table 8 in the descending order of spread but, as compared
economy is the stagnancy of the number produc- of households under the pre- tailors, they show a narrow
tion and service activities outside agri- that the number of house-base and a higher component o
sumption
culture. An obvious implication holds is a good proxy for the state of desetfers. As regards the dh
of this
feature is that those lacking adequate demand for the activity. We then stone-cutters, these are almost
access to land - like the target groups observe two household features which sively single-caste occupati
and thè Scheduled castes as seen above may be expected t© be sensitive to thehave also other signs not consistent

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ECONOMIC ANS) POLITICAL WËEKLY July 2, 1983

Table 8: Production and Service Abtisans - Indicatohs of Economic cloth merchant*, 'bangle seller', 'flower
Viability merchant', etc. Classified by the com-
modity, they faH in two groups -
lJer cent Per cent Distance from Nearest "Rural Product Dealers" and "Urban
of YAM 1 ToVvn (Krns) Product Dealers", the former assigned
No in Other
to the out-going channel and the latter
Occupa- 1st 2nd 10 or 11 to 20 21 and
tions Giste Caste Less Above to the incoming channel. Second, it is
a matter of common observation that
Production Artisans many urban products reach the villages
Tailor 151 28 34 23 38 35 27 via the village shop, hotels, etc. We
Carpenter 112 43 30 24 47 30 22 put them into two groups 'Shopkeeper'
Blacksmith 95 37 81 11 32 38 30
and 'Food Product Sellers' and place
Goldsmith 69 45 100 - 38 33 29
Potter 68 45 97 3 32 37 31 both the groups in the in-coming
Mat -weaver 36 27 100 - 39 33 28 channel. Third, there is a category of
Cobbler 25 75 96 4 32 36 32 households reporting themselves as
Total 556 38 48 19 38 35 27
'Merçhants' but not operating a village
I
shop. We take them to be traders in
Service Artisans agricultural commodities like the local
Mason 168 30 52 22 79 10 11 agents of the whole-salers located in
Dhobi 134 46 99 1 34 34 32 the outgoing channel. Table 9 lists
Stone cutter 107 30 93 4 45 35 20
these five groups of market func-
Barber 78 40 83 9 36 41 23
tionaries.
Priest 58 57 55 21 33 38 29
Tinkering work 9 25 78 22 67 11 22 An asymmetry standing out in
Total 554 38 38 35 50 28 22 Table 9 is that the functionaries in the
Grand Total 1110 38 43 27 44 31 25 in-coming channel are more numerous
than those in the outgoing channel. In
Noře: YAM refers to the Young Adult Males
fact; a similar in the
asymmetry is also age gro
1st caste refers to the caste having the activity as its t
pation and the 2nd caste refers to the caste next in importance in observed in relation to the distances
terms of the number of households pursuing the activity. travelled by the rural people for selling
their produce as compared to the dis-
with their being attractive rural-based them up in arbitrarliy selected activities.
tances involved in their purchasing
activities. Thus, the scan of the major It is not an accident that few of these activities. It can be seen from Table 10,
activities take roots and become strong
activities leaves us with a single group, drawn from a Tumkur Project study
viz, the tailors though even they may enough to stand on their own legs. on the marketing places reported by
begin to lóse ground when mass- Typically, they run up against problems the respondent households, that the
produced ready-made clothes find it not so much of production as of households move longer distances for
profitable to move into the villages marketing,
in viz , procuring inputs andselling than for purchasing; it is as if
larger quantities than now. finding profitable markets for their they have an easy access to urban goods
Regarding the other activities in products. Viewed from the standpoint but not to customers for their own
Table 8, they are - in our terminologyof the economy, they are like trans-
produce. .
- non-major* activities. While this plants rejected by the system. The point we want to emphasise is
group could include newly emerging that this asymmetry is only a clue to
Depressive M ал к ei Penetration the manner in which the market func-
activities with good prospects for future
growth, the activities actually figuring It is, thus, that we are led to tionaries - i e, the specialised groups
in Table 8 are all seen to be tradi- consider the markets linking thethrough local- which the marketing system
tional activities with some - like cob- level rural economies with theoperates larger- emerge in a rural economy,
bler, potter and mat-weaver - easily economy. While the markets and the it is easy to surmise that the market
recognisable as activities tied to rural market transactions as such were not functionaries would not tend to be
products losing ground to the urban. covered in the Tumkur Project investi-evenly distributed over the rural space;
Also, few might be willing to visualisegations, we have data on the household rather, they are likely to be located
rural development in terms of growth features of the market functionaries, more in the places performing the
in the numbers of goldsmiths and i e, households having main occupations marketing function, typically the larger
priests. On the whole, our reading of like trading, shop-keeping, etc, which villages. Second, and more important,
Table 8 is that there is little room in were 542 in number. Interestingly, it the different markets are likely to draw
the rural areas to build up resource-seems possible to distinguish five their recruits selectively. The markets
based or skill-based household occupa- groups among them - • two identifiablebringing in the urban goods may be
tions outside agriculture. This is a with what may be called the out-goingexpected to seek functionaries with a
systemic feature of the rural - economy, channel moving away the rural producewider rural spread and capable of reach-
i e, a feature arising from the struc-arid three with the incoming channel ing out to the rural people. The mar-
ture and organisation of the rural connected with the outside products kets drawing out the agricultural pro-
economy vis-a-vis the larger economy. entering, the villages. It is best to see,duce would tend tò rely more on the
It is unlikely that more non-agriculturalbriefly, what these groups are before rural elite having the requisite local
opportunities could be promoted in the going on to consider their features. experience, capacity and hold over the
rural area by simply earmarking funds First, there are the households report- farmers and their produce. Compared
for training, equipping and subsidising ing themselves as dealers in a single , to these two, the markets moving out
groups of rural people and setting named e«mm«dity - like, for example, the n он -agricultural rural produce are

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 July 2, 1983 ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL WEEKLY

Table 9: Groups of Market Table 11 is that, as compared to the mise that while the markets for non-
Functionaries rural population as a whole, the market agricultural rural produce are weak
functionaries have a larger proportion and unorganised, those for the urban
шшшшшшшшЁЯвашЁшашшвяшш^/шщЯЁШШшяяашшшаяшЁя^шяшашашЁЁЯвшшш^Ш*

No of
Households of households belonging to the group products penetrate the rural economy
of advanced castes and dominant castes deeply and widely.
Outgoing Channel and, also, they have more contacts with On the whole, one can identify two
Merchants ^ 121 the outside world in terms of visits to depressive influences arising from the
Rural product dealers ^ 79
In-coming Channel urban places and mass media use. Thismarkets linking the rural economy with
Urban product dealers 83 implies that the transactions among the the larger economy. First, they bring
Food product sellers 129 market functionaries and the rural into being a specialised group of
Shop keepers 130
participants in the markets are, typi-superior functionaries within a social
542
,'
cally, transactions among the unequals. setting which is already markedly
In a rural setting of small and localisedhierarchical in structure. Second, they
Table 10: Average Distances
markets, such transactions could be a are biased in favour of the entry and
Travelled for Sale and Purchase
source of many practices turning the penetration of the urban products into
Activities
scales against the rural participant. the rural area but leave the rural pro-
Activity Average Thus, one consequence of the growing duce to move through either the agri-
Distance 'marketisation* of the rural areas appe- cultural markets dominated by the
(Km s) ars to be the emergence of a specialised rural elite or the weak and unorganised
Saie of farm produce 16.4 group of functionaries withi a superiormarkets for the non-agricultural produce.
Sale of non-farm produce 17.0 status and with opportunities to use
Purchase of farm inputs 14.3 the status to their own advantage. Limits of State Intervention
Purchase of non-farm inputs 11.9
Purchase of consumption goods 10.9 It is also worth noting that while The main implication of the factors
the 'merchants' - the functionaries
noted afbove is that growth, develop-
Source : "Beháviour in Space : Rural connected with the trade in agricultural
ment and modernisation in the larger
Marketing in an Under-develop-
ed Economy", H Ramchandran produce « - have a large componenteconomy of do not automatically reach
with G S Sastri, Concept Pub- advanced and dominant caste house- and percolate evenly within the local-
lishing Company, New Delhi, holds, nearly two -thirds of the urbanlevel rural economies; in fact, our
1982. The data given above product dealers belong to the castesfindings would be consistent with the
are drawn from Table 3.1 given
on page 39.
other than the advanced and the do- stronger^ proposition that a vigorous
minant. This is vin line with our pre- larger economy makes the problems of
likely to be relatively weak and un-sumption noted above that the rural poverty and uneven development
organised. agricultural produce markets would
more serious rather than less. In this
It is with these presumptions in turn more to the rural elite while the context, the state intervention for rural
mind that we look at the features of urban product markets wou d look for development assumes critical import-
the market functionaries presented in functionaries having a closer access and ance in the sense that there is no
Table 11. It is clear that ťhe market mpport with the mass of rural popul- other strong and organised force work-
functionaries as a whole, as well as ation. Also, the presumption that ing for rural developmertt. Interestingly,
each of the five groups, are more con- the non-agricultural rural producethe presnt modes of state intervention
markets
centrated in the larger villages as com- tend to be weak and unorga- seem to be quite weak in their thrust
nised appears to be borne out by the and we now proceed to, describe the
pared to the distribution of total rural
percentage of the advanced and domi- weaknesses as indicated by our data.
population . by the three size-groups of
villages. However, there is a hint innant caste households among the rural Like the markets, the state also seeks
Table 11 that the urban product product dealers, the lowest among all to reach and penetrate the local-level
dealers do move out to an extent even the groups of market functionaries. rural economies by building up specia-
to the very small villages while the Incidentally, there is an obvious con- lised groups of functionaries - in this
tradiction in our interpretation of the case groups of development personnel
shop-keepers have a , fairly substantial
presence in the middle-group of caste feature as between the urban like extension staff, medical personnel,
villages. The least spread out are the product dealers and the rural product village-level workers, etc. The features
rural product dealers. It may be men- dealers. We would plead that the fea- of these groups have been studied in
tioned here that out of the 79 rural tures need to be interpreted not uni- detail in a separate paper and we con-
product dealers, 20 were fruit mer- formly and mechanically but keeping fine ourselves here to the summary pic-
chants, 17 flower merchants,. 10 vege- in mind the relevant context. For ture presented in Table 12.5 It can be
table merchants and 11 lime-stone example, taking the total picture shownseen from Table 12 that, again like the
dealers. There were none who could by Table 11, the rural product dealersmarket, the state only succeeds in
be identified as dealers in handicrafts,not only have a low component of ad-bringing into being a group superior Дп
artisan products, etc, ie, the typicalvanced and dominant caste householdsstatus and having limited penetration
products of non-agricultural household but,- also, they are located almost ex-beyond the larger villages. The gene-
production. Thus, evidently, the ruralclusively in the larger villages and onlyral principle seems to be that the inter-
producers of these products sell thema few among them are mass mediavening forces from the larger economy
either locally or réiy on urban-locatedusers. The urban product dealers havetend to build up rural-based groups be-
middlemen or agencies and, in either the first feature but not the other two.
longing to the upper strata aaid lacking
case, are likely to encounter problemsWe should also bear in mind the con-the right kind of links and rapport with
in selling their products with a fairtextual features shown by Tables 9 andthe mass of rural people. If we recall
margin of profit. 10. It is the putting together of all that the zamitidars of the past were a
The second point to be noted in these' clues which leads us to the sur-similar group brought into existence by

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 KCONOMIC AND TOLITICAL WEËLI V Ju,y 2> 1983

Тли le 11: Features of Mabket Functionabies the current strateg

rural gpoverty. Firs
' Total gory of food-for-w
M RPD UPD FPS ŠH MF Rural guarantee schemes designed to
Popn
provide supplementary employmemt.
.Distribution by size of villages (per cent) It is important to note that these are
Size Groups the, programmes not so much for eradi-
Less than 500 8 1 12 7 6 7 16 cation of poyerty as for prevention of
500-1000 22 4 5 9 25 24 36 destitution in periods of acute distress
1000 and above 70 95 83 84 69 69 48 or in areas having exteasive unemploy-
Caste Status ment. In particular, a progressive rise
Percent of HHs of in the wage level is neiť er an objec-
Advanced castes and tive nor a likely outeomè of these pro-
Dominant castes 54 25 35 76 51 51 43
grammes. Second, there are the more
Information and Contacts :
'ambitious programmes to help the poor
Per cent of HHs having: 4
(i) Radio habit 34 20 37 27 29 30 14 in taking up self-employed occupations
(ii) Newspaper habit 14 6 23 15 10 13 5 like dairy, poultry, artisan work/ etc.
(iii) Contact with: . A round of the Tumkur Project investi-
(a) Táluk/Town 61 58 51 51 57 56 50 gation, N conducted in the period
(b) District town 24 47 28 24 25 28 18 February to May 1982 which is the
(c) Bangalore ^ 13 17 25 15 14 16 9
slack season in the study area, covered
six purposively selected villages from
Note : M: Merchants, RPD : Rural Product Dealers; UPD: Urban Product
among the original sample of villages.
Dealers, FPS: Food Product sellers; SH: Shop-keepers; MF: Market
Functionaries. v - There were 61 agricultural labour
Advanced casteshouseholds
include among the respondents Brah. in
minant castes include Volckalig
this round, and the data collected in
the round throw interesting light on the
Table 12: Features of Development Personnel
relevance and usefulness to the agricul-
tural labourers öf the two categories of
Development Market Rural
Personnel Functionaries Population programmes . noted above.
Regarding the schemes providing
employment to the rural poor, they do
Distribution by size of village (Per cent)
Size Group: not seem to have much relevance to
Less than 500 9 7 16 the agricultural labourers in the study
500-1000 , 26 24 36 area. The adult males in the agricultural
1000 and above 65 • 69 48 labour households were asked about
Caste Status*
thpir activities during the days imme-
Per cent HHs of advanced caster diately preceding the day of interview;
and dominant ^qastes 64 r 51 43 specifically, they were asked to indicate
Information and Contacts the activities by five 3-hour 'time units',
Per cent HHs having: covering the period 6 am to 9 p m.
(i) Radio habit ' 62 30 14 Forty-niné adult males from the agri-
(ii) Newspaper habit 50 13 5
(iii) Contact «with : - cultural labour households provided
(a) Taluk town 59 56 50 data for a total of 152 days, i e, on an
(b) District town 45 28 18 average for three days preceding the
(c) Bangalore 29 16 9 , day of interview. As we mentioned
above, the period óf investigation fell
-

,e See the note to Table 11.

in the slack season of the study area.
Table 13 : Unemployment among Agricultural Labourers It can be seen from Table 13 that only
19 out of the 152 days were the days
No Total Time Time Time "No without i any economic activity, viz,
of No of Units Units . Units Work'' eiither wage employment or self-
Days Time Spent Spent Spent Time employed work. Also, out of the 760
Units on Agri on Non- on Non- Units
Work Agri Econo- time units, only 23 fell in the category
' Work .mie Ac- ' no work'; the rest were devoted to
tivfty either economic activities or to non-
Days having wage employment economic activities like household work,
activity 97 '485 79 211 190 5 leisure, sickness, etç. •) It may be
Davs having self-employment mentioned that the wage rates reported
activity 36 180 31 77 67 5
by the respondents werç around Rs 5
Davs with no economic activity 19 ,95 - r • - 82 13
Total 1 152 760 110 288 339 23 per day, not much below the minimum
wage rate laid down fór .agricultural
work which, depending on the agricul^
the British rulers, it would
lopment be
personnel
turai easy
operation,
in varies to
working
between Rs 6 and for
appreciate the development.
limitations of Rsthe pre-
7.50 .though the slack season would
sent day marketThere
functionaries
are two and
have deve-
only limited
programmes and low wage agri-typic

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 July 2, 1983 ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL WEEKLY

cultural operatioas and the effective important but, also, most difficult, it sans and small and marginal far-
minimum wage obtainable in the slack~*needs to have a design to strengthen mers, the only group with respec-
table numerical size left in such
season would be closer to Rs 6 per the position of the local-level rural
villages is the group of medium
economies vis-a-vis the larger economy.
day. Clearly, there is little scope in the cult' va tors. It may be mentioned
study area to improve the incomes of Without such a design, state interven- that they formed 37 per cent and
the agricultural labourers through pro- tion would function only as a delivery 50 per cent, respectively of the
total households in villages A'
vision of more employment at the mini- system and not as a force capable of and B.
mum wage though, as noted abòve, this bringing about the changes needed for 3 "Nature of Rural Underdevelop-
programme is very relevant in prevent- rural development. ment * - A Field View'*. V M Rao,
ing destitution in areas and times Economic and Political Weekly,
Another implication of our findings, October 10, 1981.
characterised by extreme paucity of more relevant at the implementation 4 It may be mentioned here that the
rmployment. What the agricultural level of the rural plans, is that the numbers of non-scheduled caste
labourers in the study area need are households in these groups were,
local-level plans need a mote informa- respectively, 89, 36 and 146.
much higher wages or, alternatively,
tive and probing monitoring system 5 'Rural Development Personnel -
high productivity occupations. than is provided by the programme- Location, Status and Development
Let us now see the position with Character istitóT', V M Rao, Eco-
wise statistics on physical norms, expen-
respect to the asset-providing schemes. nomic and Political Weekly , Octo-
ditures incurred, beneficiaries covered, ber 16, 1982.
The only scheme which figured in our etc. Our experience in the Tumkur
data is the scheme to proyide a milch
Project has been that the village statis-
buffalo to a household. * Of the 61 agri-
tics given in the District Census Hand- Automotive Axles
cultural labourer households, 17 were
book - and similar statistical compila-
having some land and 44 were landless. AUTOMOTIVE' AXLES, promoted by
tions - permit identification of in-
From the former group, three reported Pune-based Bharat Forge in association
teresting categories of villages by their
to have received a milch buffalo éach. with Rockwell International of US, is
resource-base, population composition
and all the three were continuing to and location. The household data used
establishing a project in a backward
have (hem on the day of the investi- in this paper and о thee Tumkur Project area 4 near Mysore for annual manu-
gation. From the latter group, 8 re- studies have all been collected through facture of 20,000 sets of axles 'and cor-
ported to have benefited from the village level workers, school teachers lesponding brake sets. Bharat Forge
scheme though only 6 were in posses- and, in the latest round, through has been engaged in manufacture of
sion of the milch buffalo on the day of steel forgings and ikiish machined crank-
fhe ùnemployed graduates residing in
the investigation. Considering that the the villages in the study area. In other shafts for the last 17 years and owns
asset-providing schemes are in operation words, they are of the type which one of the largest forge shops in Asia.
for thé last more than a decade, it is could be easily collected , by the staff Rockwell is a world-wide leader in
superfluous to comment on the very low implementing the local-level plans. It managing and advancing technologies
coverage yf agricultural labourers re- occurs to us that it should be possible in four major fielas - aerospace, elec-
vealed by oür data. tronics and automotive and general
to set up a simple and practicable in-
On the whole, state intervention for formation system, to be operated as a industries. Both promoters are partici-
rural development appears to be weak part of the implementation of the local - pating in the equity capital of the
in both its personnel and programmes. level piafas, ^ based on a combined company upto 40 per cent each of the
This is not to say that the development observation of the programme-wise total capital. The project cost estimated
data and- the household data over a at Rs 3Ó.3 crore is proposed to be
programmes are not having any
impact at all. The point is rather thatcross-section of selected villages of financed partly by share capital of
state intervention lacks the strategy different types identified in the area. Rs 8.25 crore consisting of 8250 lakh
and design • for development focused The institute for Social and Economic equity shares of Rs 10 each. Of these,
on the objective of activating the 33 lakh shares have been allotted to
Change proposes to take up a study in
human factor in the rural economy. each of the premoters. The remaining
^ selected taluk to pursue this theme 16.50 lakh equity shares are to be
It now seeks to operate only as a de- using the field experience gained in the
livery system reaching resources and Tumkur Project. offered to the public for subscription.
services to • the weak areas and target The subscription list is to open ой
Notes July 13. According to N A Kalyani, a
groups. A- delivery system, even an
efficient one, cannot quite overcome director, the emerging trend in the
[This paper belongs to a series beimg
the barriers in rural development prepared in the Tumkur Project to automotive industry is to manufacture
('escribed in this paper. The strategyexplore the new themes on rural de- vehicles with a capacity for carrying
for activating the human factor needs velopment suggested by V К R V Rao,heavier payloads. The company will
the Honorary Director of the Project.
to have many additional policies and Thanks are due to him for cotanmentsmanufacture technologically advanced
programmes. It has to consider the and discussions on the theme of this and cost effective axles for trucks,- trai-
ways for promoting socio-economic in- paper. 1 lers, multi-axle vehicles, buses, military
1 It may be mentioned here that
tegration among neighbouring villages both villages A and В have a pri- vehicles and off -highway vehicles. Com-
to help the emergence of viable rural mary school within the village. mercial production is expected to start
communities. It should face the pro- The midd'e and high schools are from October this year, hence there is
blems in revitalising th¿ insfitutions located at a dista ce of about 5 no gestation period. The shares will
miles but this is a feature common
like Panchayats and Co-operatives and, be listed on Bangalore, Pune and
to many villages in the study
more basically, the problems in draw- area. Bombay stock exchanges. The issue is
ing out the latent capacities of the 2 Small villages usually have few being jointly managed by the Mer-
households of large cultivators, chant Banking Division of IClCl and
iural people to work together in volum- tťaders etc. If we exclude the
tary form" of organisations. Most DSP Financial Consultants.
target groups like labourers, arti-

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