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The
Indian economy bears no resemblance to what it was 20 years
ago. At that time, it was basically an agro-based economy
with significant industrial inputs. The service sector was
largely state controlled and poorly developed and what was
described as "services" was basically income generated
from the services of various public corporations. The presence
of a large and professional service sector was largely unknown.
Today,
services are driving the economic growth. However, this has
lead to congestion in the urban areas, with significant rural
migration to the large cities. India has significantly improved
on its problem solving capability regarding urban infrastructure
development. There are proper frameworks in place; the large
municipal corporations have acquired the capacity to raise
their own funds; and structuring and policy framing skills
are indigenously available, on a steadily increasing basis.
While
all these developments are there in the urban areas, the lack
of the same in the rural and semi-urban areas has been a cause
for serious concern among policy makers. Taking cognizance
of this fact, the authorities have looked for effective measures
to develop rural infrastructure, without which the rapid growth
of the rural economy would not be possible. We would like
to point out that "rural" does not strictly point
to "agrarian" for the purpose of this article. There
is a considerable scope for other services to come up, provided
the support infrastructure comes up as well. The problem is
that the rural people in many cases are not used to pay for
such infrastructure. There are also a number of vested interests
in the rural areas which cannot be monitored in the same way
as an urban municipality can. Therefore it is clear that the
state has to take up a large part of this burden, if the development
of the rural areas is to take off. The Rural Infrastructure
Development Fund ( RIDF) plays a crucial role, in that it
is being operated and monitored by National Bank for Agriculture
and Rural Development (NABARD) which has been the apex body
for such development, over the past few decades. |
