Dr. Banarsi Lal and Dr. Pawan Sharma
India is a rural dominated country and villages are said to be the heart of this nation. According to 2011 Census, the population of rural areas comprised of 68.84 per cent. Migration of the people from rural areas to urban areas causes some burden on the urban areas. If the vision of the founders of this nation is to be respected and implemented, then we all need to have the responsibility to make our villages smart, which means self-sufficient, efficient, healthy and educated villagers. To make the villages smart means to make the country self-reliant, stronger and secured. Some of the ways to make villages smart include offering basic facilities, education, employment generation activities, technology etc. The concept of the smart village is not constructed on the image of a city or a very developed village of some states or nations. It is not an adopted smartness, but an avenue to show the inherent smartness of the villages. India lives in its villages. Villages are the food basket of the nation. Village Panchayats are the centres of grass root democracy. However, the holistic development of rural India is still under tremendous pressure owing to the declining farm output, increasing trend of distressed migration, absence of basic amenities and emerging problems of environmental pollution and conflicts.
Generally the people in urban areas think that rural people lack ambition and entrepreneurship. The villagers have all the potential of development socially, scientifically, economically and environmentally. If we understand the eco-system of the Indian villages, truly there are all the opportunities and avenues to make our villages and our country a sustainably developing nation. A smart village feels that its citizens know its available resources, applicable services, various schemes and programmes etc. It knows what it needs and when it needs. Focused areas of the smart village initiatives are improved resource-use efficiency, empowered local self governance, access to assured basic amenities and responsible individual and community behaviour to build a vibrant rural society. In a smart village major thrust is given on the technology as a means for development, enabling education and agricultural entrepreneurial opportunities, improving health and social welfare, enhancing democratic engagement and overall enhancement of rural village dwellers. The Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has proved its potential in various sectors of development in some of the rural areas. In a smart village concept, the use of the information and telecommunication is surely a major priority area. The ratio of school dropouts at school or college level is quite high amongst the rural youth which negatively impacts the education policy and targets of the Indian government. There is lack of availability of vocational avenues in rural areas which further adversely affects the aspirations of the rural youths. Such youths with little education, lack of vocational skills and pass through utter poverty and they think to migrate to the nearest urban cities or large cities for employment.
For the development of smart village, a cluster approach should be followed. Each district can be divided into clusters of 10 to 15 villages according to the specific number of population. There is need to design the blue print to develop infrastructure like roads, buildings, bridges, canals, ponds, sewages, schools, colleges, hospitals etc. as per need based on local resources available or in the district or within the state. The smart village concept should formulate growth strategies for the village to make it self-sufficient in protecting native occupation and heritage and monuments of the village. The residents should be trained for different services and the funding agencies, microfinance institutions and NGOs can be approached for creating a financial eco-system to develop a development chain.
The smart village concept is needed for a sustainable and a secured future of the villages. It is about understanding the villages towards the growth model which is inclusive. It’s about achieving a higher goal without compromising the roots and the sense of belongingness of the masses. The concept of smart village is contemporary and very reliable today as there is a limit of the growth of cities which is leading to creation of urban jungles, where the population ratio and its related issues per km of land is way above the expected targets. A smart village should be interactive and multi-functional and provisions must be there for active participation of people in various developmental activities. A smart village is one which will automatically link local production with local procurement and local and outside distribution. A smart village will also have the power, knowledge, healthcare, technology, entrepreneurship and quicker connectivity in terms of information acquiring and dissipation. A smart village will not only bring internet connection to the rural areas, but also provides support to sustainable agricultural practices. Simply parroting the much standardized views and ideas of some selected institutions shall not suffice the needs and requirements of our villages. Indian villages are located in different geographies and ecosystems with definite and concretely embedded respective differences in terms of needs, cultures, values, norms and requirements. Focus is made on the village economy with sincere efforts to increase the economic growth such that more and more people contribute to the growth of the village economy, farming on their own land, producing more from their own fields. There is need of adequate financial support to the farmers and good prices for their produce.
Pure drinking water and good sanitation are essential prerequisites for good health and hygiene. Most of the epidemics and ill health in India is mainly due to communicable diseases caused by oral faecal routes. Open defecation along with contaminated water are still the major challenges in our villages. A smart village must have this aim to eliminate the above mentioned problems. Innovative approaches to improve water supply and sanitation must be tested well and introduced in the villages. Skills and knowledge are essential driving forces of economic growth and social development of any country. They have become even more important given the increasing pace of globalization, and technological change that is taking place in the world. Smart villages should take best opportunities to showcase the area and region specific skills and wisdom to the world.
Solar powered street lights have all the required means today to lighten up the villagers in terms of the sense of security. Solar LED street lighting will provide a high quality, sustainable lighting solution for people in remote areas who don’t have access to the conventional electricity grid. It will help in increasing the level of safety on roads and streets and allowing for more economic and social activity. Unorganized growth model has seen in the forms of mammoth heaps of waste in many cities. This form of growth that generates more waste than efficient consumption of resources must not be replicated in our villages. Sustainable waste management, conversion of rural waste into rural wealth can help our villages to become free from unwanted waste that is left uncollected. This will make the working conditions much better and will definitely help in improving the life expectancy of the locals.
feedbackexcelsior@gmail.com
Trending Now
E-Paper
Follow our WhatsApp channel