The Models and the Aspiring Models: Assessing the Sustainable Rural Development Philosophy and Reality in India through Multi-dimensional Indices

Sangeeta Bhattacharyya^1*R R Burman²Rabindra Nath Padaria³Sudipta Paul⁴Venkatesh Palanisamy³Anindita Datta⁵Pinaki Roy⁶Suchandra Dutta⁷Samrat Sikdar⁸Savita Kumari⁹

• ¹Central Citrus Research Institute (ICAR), Nagpur, India
• ²Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), New Delhi, Delhi, India
• ³Indian Agricultural Research Institute (ICAR), New Delhi, National Capital Territory of Delhi, India
• ⁴National Rice Research Institute (ICAR), Cuttack, Odisha, India
• ⁵Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), New Delhi, National Capital Territory of Delhi, India
• ⁶Krishi Vigyan Kendra Sitamarhi, Sitamarhi, India
• ⁷Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda Educational and Research Institute, Narendrapur Campus, Kolkata, West Bengal, India
• ⁸School of Human Sciences, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, Mississippi, United States
• ⁹College of Horticulture and Forestry, Dr. Yashwant Singh Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Neri, Himachal Pradesh, India

The key to sustainable societies and food systems in developing countries like India is sustainable rural development because majority population resides in villages. In India, the Gandhian philosophy of rural self-sustainability has been a major inspiration in shaping not only individual or philanthropic rural development efforts (philosophical and less planned), but also government rural development programmes (RDPs which are planned reality of the philosophy). In this study, the authors assess the progressiveness of 'Aspiring' self-sustainable villages (planned reality) developed under a governmental rural self-sustainability programme named Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana (SAGY) in comparison with the Model Villages of the Past (based on philosophy with no governmental intervention/philanthropic) as both categories of villages were developed on the basis of Gandhian philosophy of rural self-sustainability but there exists no comprehensive measure for comparing the progress of SAGY Villages (developed on realistic indicator based approach) with the Model Villages of the past (developed solely on philosophical approach) even after a decade of implementation of SAGY. Hence 7 multi-dimensional composite indices were developed in this study for comparative assessment after careful triangulation of indicators. Rural Health Status Index/RHSI (8 indicators), Rural Educational Status Index/RESI (6 indicators), Rural Farming Status Index/RFSI (8 indicators), Rural Infrastructure Index/RIF (40 indicators), Rural Livestock Status Index/RLSI (8 indicators), Rural Ecological Status Index/RECSI (7 indicators) and Status of Rural Women Index/SRWI (6 indicators) were developed using Categorical Principal Components Analysis method. Validation of the indices were done with 1200 respondents (n=1200) of Model Villages and SAGY Villages of Maharashtra and Telangana states. The Aspirants of Telangana had excelled than Models in 4 indices (RESI=0.87, RFSI=1.06, RLSI=1.31, RECSI=0.56) while those of Maharashtra in 3 (RHSI=1.62, RFSI=1.5, RLSI=1.29). In both states Model villages had better infrastructure and status of rural women while farming and livestock sector witnessed significant improvement in performance after introduction of SAGY. Secondary database of District Census Handbook having household level quantitative data of sub-districts were found to be in corroboration with the index values (primary data analysis) obtained. The indices developed have scope of replication in similar rural systems of the world.