Social Capital and Rural Development in India

Abstract

According to the 2001 census of India, about 72.2 per cent of India's population has been living in rural areas. Apart from the vast number of rural population the incidence of poverty is much higher in villages being 29.18 per cent in 2004-05 which itself is a signal for remedial action. Rural development programmes launched since the advent of planning in fifties have made an impact on the rural scenario in India, though it is of an uneven kind. The single weakness of the rural development programmes in India perhaps lies in its inadequately equipped field level organization, especially at the block and village levels. As the state is beginning to retreat after having failed to fulfill its promises, and as markets are only just beginning to penetrate the rural areas, many analysts are calling for civil society solutions for dealing with the problem of poverty. For civil society solutions to be effective and viable over a wide range, either the factors that enable coordinated action by citizens must be abundantly available, or these factors should be easy to reproduce at relatively little cost. The growing literature on social capital provides some support for taking an optimistic view.