Rural poverty can be at times bewildering... A presentation by Dr Narendar sourced for MCJ students of Osmania University

1. Rural poverty can be at times bewildering... A presentation sourced for MCJ students of Osmania University

2. Let us try to understand poverty in rural areas in a simple power point presentation...

3. There are thousands of villages and each has a problem of its own...

4. But let us try to generalize a little bit...

5. Let us take the example of any typical village… what are the problems?

6. 1. Bad infrastructure - bad roads and poor quality of electricity (if there is any…)

7. 2. Poor quality of education - school buildings are in bad shape, teachers are of poor quality, parents don’t send kids to school...

8. 3. Government Health Service - not working …primary health centre is too far away, doctors don’t come...

9. 4. Source of income limited - and in recent times the price of crops are falling...

10. 5. Uneducated people lack information on various government schemes for them...

11. 6. Unplanned development - money is often wasted on things that are less important…proper planning is lacking...

12. 7. Social prejudices - prevents breaking of norms and innovation; keeps women locked inside home;often conned by gurus...

13. In addition there are special problems of various regions - arsenic in water, flood, lack of rain...

14. So what is the answer? Let us look at some of the ‘medicines’ that are being tried out now...

16. Health - there are lot of government schemes plus work done by NGOs… There is emerging consensus that villagers have to learn to make themselves less vulnerable and rely less on the ‘doctor’...

20. What is the biggest problem of all?

21. The education system of the urban schools are such that the educated middle class hardly understands the problem of rural areas and develops very little interest in it… … hence there are very few high IQ persons in India trying to address the problems faced by the rural poor… … however India cannot become strong and achieve the dreams of the nationalist struggle unless rural poverty is eliminated...

22. Do you agree?