The comments from a previous post questioning the value of urbanization discussed the need of developing rural industries and services. According to iGovernment, the government has made a real step toward this with the Ministry of Panchayati Raj and the Khadi and Village Industry Commission (KVIC), a non-profit, working together to promote the Rural Business Hubs (RBH) initiative.
Under this initiative, Panchayats and KVIC will jointly identify potential projects that can be supported under KVIC schemes and also extend marketing support through the corporate members of industry working on the RBH initiative.
Wherever required, skill development and skill upgradation training will be provided to the potential beneficiaries by KVIC through accredited training agencies.
Considering the fact that RBH has been in place for three years, I wonder how successful programs under the initiative really are. In addition, there is a barrage of other questions that come to mind: Do the MoUs actually become operational? Are the rural areas in which they enact MoUs seeing an increase in economic development? And more importantly, does the development of rural industries allow for self-sustaining local economies, or does it make them more dependent (in an arguably negative way) on global markets?
