Dear Friends,

The country’s progress will be possible only through overall development of villages; rapid rural industrialisation is the need of the hour and appropriate technologies are needed to achieve it, according to M.P. Gurusamy, secretary, Gandhi Memorial Museum, Madurai.

Crucial for growth of rural economy: Rural industrialisation increases skilled as well as non-skilled employment opportunities, diversifies rural occupations, raises income and living standards, reduces exodus to urban areas and ensures social justice. alternative to their meagre agricultural income.

A large number of industries have been established in the post-independence India in private, public and joint sectors. There are a lot of industrial resources and raw materials available in India. Bhilai, Bokaro, Rourkela, Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Renukoot, etc., emerged as major centres during the first one and a half decades of independence.

However, later on, industrialisation at medium and small scale was taken up in all the states. The main sectors of indus¬trialisation today are electronics, transport and telecommunication. Compared to advanced countries, there is very little industrialis¬ation in India. About 10 per cent of the total workers are employed in the organised industrial sector. Both private and public sectors have grown side by side since independence.

One of the central problems impinging significantly on rural development is the shrinking employment opportunities in rural areas. Seasonal unemployment, partial unemployment, artisans who are at the margins because the technology they use has become obsolete is common in Indian villages. Finding jobs to match the skills of the people is one enormous task for any government. Agriculture is widely found to be non-remunerative. This has accelerated migration to urban areas in a big way, worsening the situation of urban poverty. A recent challenge to development in rural areas is distress departure from agriculture. The paradox is that commercial exploitation of resources in rural areas is systematically done by corporate interests. The dearth of access to information, knowledge and technology make rural people to stand away and watch their resources such as land, sand, soil, water, vegetation, herbs, trees etc. being exploited by profiteering interests. The unlettered or semi-literate rural people wind up their business in villages, and get set to depart to urban centres in search of employment in the cities.

Industries are places that manufacture goods or articles for the consumption of the masses. Industries generate employment for the society. Industries contribute to the economic development of a nation. Rural industries are non-farm activities that depend on rural resources, and are primarily meant for employment generation through effective utilization of locally available resources, human power and technologies that are native or home-grown. These are by nature small-scale. These are usually based in villages. Hence, they are popularly addressed as: small-scale industries / village industries / rural industries. Since employment generation is one of the essential objectives of rural industries, they usually work with the philosophy of production by masses-as opposed to mainstream industries where goods are mass produced. It aims at reducing unemployment levels, and enhancing the individual and household incomes. Since the scale of activities is small, the financial requirement is also usually small.

Thus, rural industrialization includes economic activities outside agriculture, carried out in villages and varying in size from households to small factories. Some examples of these activities are cottage, tiny, village and small-scale manufacturing and processing industries; and services of various kinds. Household industries have declined over time, whereas small scale, non-household industries have expanded. Cottage enterprises – based on part-time family labour – are relatively less efficient than small-scale, fulltime and specialised rural industries.

TYPES OF RURAL INDUSTRIES On the basis of scale and primary function, there are four groups of industries which can be expanded or developed in the rural areas in Eighth plan:
1) Traditional Village Industries: It comprises of Khadi, leather tanning, wood work, artisan industries, cotton cloth, both handloom and power loom and fabrics, handicrafts, coir, sericulture and wool development, etc.

2) Heavy Industry: There is a growing demand and scope as shown in the latest Survey of Rural Consumer Expenditure on the item of heavy industries. These include: (a) fertilizer plants which will use bio-mass (b) pesticides using biological inputs, (c) Mini-steel plants, (d) ancillary engineering that can meet the demand or medium and large farms-like ploughs, threshers etc.

3) Medium Group Industries: (a) Mini-cement plant which can use molasses or coal as energy and can meet the rural construction works, (b) minor paper plant, etc.

4) Light Industries: (a) Animal feed and fodder industries, (b) the growing building and construction programme to meet the house demand of rural area, industries producing building materials like hinges, screens, doors and windows frames and roofing materials, (c) improved agricultural implements and machinery using the steel and iron produced in the rural areas.