Why rising disconnect between cities and villages ?

India lives in its villages, and while the cities have grown immensely over ... It is easy to see the rising disconnect between cities and villages. Our economy is developing fast, Industries and big corporate are going globalized, with liberalization, tremendous changes are being felt in IT, manufacturing, Service sectors, but nobody thinks of the rural development to make it as fast as in these sectors.

Then what all this progress and development means? Benefiting to 30% in the total population, already developed and above poverty does not mean any development to nation.

Some questions that take you more deep in this issue.

QUESTION: 1 

Have you ever thought about while we have fully air conditioned international schools in our cities, the schools in villages still don’t have benches and chairs, leave alone computers.

We have a huge shortage of teachers in rural areas, and the school drop out rate is huge.

WHY RURAL AREAS LAG BEHIND CITIES BY DECADES?

QUESTION: 2 

In cities, we have wide roads, flyovers and underpasses while many villages still don’t have proper roads. Urban-rural road links can play a vital role in rural growth.

WHY RURAL AREAS LAG BEHIND CITIES IN GROWTH EVEN TODAY ?

QUESTION: 3 

Employment opportunities are hardly there in villages which forces youth to move to cities creating imbalance in the economic ecosystem and leaving the villages deprived.

WHY LACK OF EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY IN RURAL AREA?

QUESTION: 4 

While we may have numerous hospitals, nursing homes and medical facilities in cities, villages neither have health awareness nor health facilities. Many of the villagers even today have to flock to cities for even basic treatments.

WHY RISING DISCONNECT BETWEEN CITIES AND VILLAGES?

Why rising disconnect between cities and villages have you ever thought about this?

The main reason of this disconnection is the difference in way of life in urban and rural areas. People in cities get accustomed to the comfortable way of life that they are not even ready to visit villages for vacation. The reason behind this is cities get expanded and more opportunities are made available for the people flooding in. New ventures, experiments and socializing happen in cities. The doors for each opportunity are more open in cities when compared to villages and therefore the facilities and comfort would be different from what you may find in villages.

The opportunities is made use by people in cities because of the education facilities. This education is not available for villages because they do not understand the importance and prefer to let the children work in fields than in study in classroom. Even if some parents are open minded to educate their children, they send them out to cities for higher studies or job.

When coming to the kind of food habits that people of both these places follow; people living in cities are more vulnerable to many diseases because of their sedentary lifestyle and fast food intake. With inappropriate exercising and large intake of fast food, the fast moving crowd compromises on their health which would have to be heavily paid off later in life. However, in villages, people stick to the old homemade food habits and since transportation is still to be up to the mark, a lot of exercising happens and this helps them to remain fit and healthy in the long run.

Coming to the health of people in regard with pollution. Since cities are heavily populated and each member having vehicles, the amount of pollution is extremely high in cities and this has led to great amount of pollution and allergic diseases, even in small kids.

However, in villages the question of pollution does not come up to that level of what it is there in cities and hence fresher and less polluted air is available, which is good for both health and mind. People are more systematic and scheduled and get their work done by themselves rather than calling up or outsourcing the day to day household chores.

The villagers are seen as poor and helpless people who approach urban people with expectations only, but as a matter of fact villagers are kind and humble to point out the mistake of civilized people of cities. Villagers are eager and talented to learn new things but the facilities always reach them late than cities hence leaving them backward. This not the mistake of people in villages but that of the government that does not treat the cities and villages equally.

Currently India needs a literate labour force for the growth of our nation. But most of the people live in villages (70% in India). So we are in high need of  rural development in India for our nation building, it is a national necessity and has a considerable importance in todays scenario.

This post was written by SWETHA, II year PGDM ( 2014-2016 )