WHAT IS RURAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP?

The problem is essentially lop-sided development which is development of one area at thecost of development of some other place, with concomitant associated problems of underdevelopment. For instance, we have seen unemployment or underemployment in the villagesthat has led to influx of rural population to the cities. What is needed is to create a situation sothat the migration from rural areas to urban areas comes down. Migration per se is not alwaysundesirable but it should be the minimum as far as employment is concerned. Rather thesituation should be such that people should find it worthwhile to shift themselves from townsand cities to rural areas because of realization of better opportunities there. In other words,migration from rural areas should not only get checked but overpopulated towns and citiesshould also get decongested. The question is, is it really possible? If it is so, ways can alwaysbe found out. One is by forcibly stopping villagers from settling in the slums of towns andcities, making use of all powers to clear the slums so the villagers are forced to go back. Butsuch practices have not achieved the desired results in the past. Apart from causing sufferingto the poor people and adding to the expenditure for the Government, social tensions andeconomic hardships created by the government officials and their staff in every demolition of slums is not desirable from a sane government. Moreover, when a slum is demolished peopledo not move out of urban locality. They only relocate to a nearby place because they areentrenched in the economy of the town or city. Though governments have tried out variousschemes for generating incomes in the rural areas such government initiatives have notstopped people from moving out of villages to cities. This is because such governmentinitiatives are not on their own capable of enabling people to earn adequately and amelioratetheir conditions. There has to be some committed enterprising individual or a group of people

RURAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN INDIA2 who should be capable of making use of the government policies and schemes for thebetterment of rural people. Some individuals who happen to be local leaders and NGOs andwho are committed to the cause of the rural people have been catalytic agents fordevelopment. Though their efforts need to be recognized yet much more needs to be done toreverse the direction of movement of people, i.e. to attract people to the rural areas. It meansnot only stopping the outflow of rural people but also attracting them back from the townsand cities where they had migrated. This is possible when young people consider rural areasas places of opportunities. Despite all the inadequacies in rural areas one should assess theirstrengths and build on them to make rural areas places of opportunities. This is much to dowith the way one sees the reality of the rural areas. The way a survivor or a job seeker wouldsee things would be certainly different from those who would like to do somethingworthwhile and are ready to go through a difficult path to achieve their goals. It isn't thatthere is a dearth of people with such mindset. But with time they change their minds and jointhe bandwagon of job seekers due to various compulsions. Enabling them to think positively,creatively and Entrepreneurship purposefully is utmost for the development of rural areas.Young people with such perspective and with the help of rightly channelized efforts wouldusher in an era of rural entrepreneurship. In this country successful rural entrepreneurs wouldsolve many of the chronic problems within a short time. To promote entrepreneurs who would take to rural entrepreneurship in utmost earnestnessand sincerity is to ensure rural development. Such enterprising people who prefer ruralentrepreneurship may or may not themselves belong torural areas. Entrepreneurs taking torural entrepreneurship should not only set up enterprises in rural areas but should be alsousing rural produce as rawmaterial and employing rural people in their production processes. Ruralentrepreneurship is, in essence, that entrepreneurship which ensures valueaddition to rural resources in rural areas engaging largely rural humanresources. In other words, this means that finished products are produced inrural areas out of resourcesobtained in rural areas by largely rural people. The entrepreneur may or may not be of rural origin. The entrepreneurs may be fromanywhere, but their enterprises have to be located in a rural area, using mainly local resourcesboth material as well as human. Also, the enterprises have to be located in a rural area thoughit need not be actually using 100% local material and human resources. Some amount of material and some people may be from urban cities. But certainly large portion of materialused has to be locally produced and an appreciable number of people engaged in theproduction of finished goods should be people based or living in rural areas.Even a unit set up by the government or a large company in a rural area could promote ruralentrepreneurship depending on how much opportunities it throws up for entrepreneurs to uselocal resources, to fulfill the demands of such large units and the multiplier effect such largeunits create. Any large unit coming up in rural areas more or less does have an impact inactivating the surrounding economy for entrepreneurs to take advantage of. This is preciselythe reason why it is recommended to shift industries from urban centers to neighboring ruralareas. Such shifting initially may be a difficult proposition but in the long run beneficial inmany ways. Moreover, it would throw up lots of opportunities in the rural areas and result indecongestion of the urban centers. Urban slums would start disappearing with large numberof industries getting shifted to rural areas resulting in increasing opportunities in the ruralareas. Thus, both the rural as well as urban areas get benefited by setting up more industrialunits in the rural areas, making rural areas attractive locations for investments.