Factors Determining Sustainable Rural Development in India: An Empirical Study

Abstract

Rural India represents the absolute India. In the era of aggressive urbanization, India depicts itself as a rural country. The reason behind this depiction is that population of rural India consist of 69 percent of the total population. According to the census of 2011 India’s rural population is 12 percent of world’s population. The rural people of India are mostly engaged in agricultural or other informal activities and share a larger part when compared to other formal activities and source of earning. The rural part of India also represents the population living below poverty line, having low expectancy rate and Human Development Index. These problems highlight an important issue that majority of the India’s population need to be freed from these problems. This paper will highlight the problems existing in rural India and the solutions that will help to eradicate these important issues so that rural India will be able to depict the developed India. The researcher had surveyed 221 people working for rural development in India to know the factors that determines the Sustainable Rural Development in India and found that Government initiatives, PURA (Providing Urban Facilities in Rural Areas), Development of ICT and Participation of rural people are different factors that determines the Sustainable Rural Development in India.