Prof. Dr. P. K. Jena in Bhubaneswar, July 7, 2016 : India is a highly populated country. It occupies 2.4% of the world’s land area but supports nearly 17.5% of the world’s population. According to the 2001 census of Government of India, nearly 72.2% population of India lived in around 638,000 villages and the remaining 27.8% of the population lived in about 5480 towns and cities. In the country, due to rapid growth of population, and at the same time fast development of urban areas, as per 2011 census, out of 121 crores about 83.3 crores of our people live in rural areas while 37.7 crores live in urban areas.

As per 2001 census, the rural and urban population distribution was 68.84% and 31.16% respectively. Due to poverty and increasing unemployment, there is a heavy influx of rural people to the urban areas. During the last 10 years, the urban population has increased from 27.81% to 31.16%. The poor from rural areas rush to cities mostly because of unemployment and poverty.

Unfortunately, most of the people from villages to the cities living in the outskirts of the urban areas lead a very poor and unhealthy life and earn their livelihood performing various types of unskilled job and many times get also involved in unsocial activities.

The per capita Net National Income (NNI) of India during 2014 – 2015 was Rs 87,748 while it was Rs 80,388 in the previous financial year indicating a rise of 9.2%. However, the NNI for people living in rural areas is very much less than that for those living in urban areas. For example, in the financial year 2011 – 2012, the average per capita NNI for urban area was 101,313 rupees and that for the rural area was only 40,772 rupees. It is very important to bridge this huge gap. If the socio-economic conditions of our people in the villages are uplifted through various developmental programmes including agro industries, it would not be very difficult to bring up their per capita income to the present urban value. By this way, it would be possible to impressively raise the general standard of living in India.

The idea of ‘Smart Village’ in some form or other was conceived long back by the Father of our Nation, Mahatma Gandhi. He desired that, the village should have perfect sanitation, ventilated clean houses for all, clean and good roads, water for drinking and other agricultural and domestic purposes; it should produce its own grains, vegetables, fruits, milk etc. Mahatma Gandhi wished that, there should be harmony amongst different communities, the society should be free from untouchability and also good health care and education for all. All the people in the villages should be employed, different developmental activities should be carried out on a cooperative basis and there should be recreation centres, library, play ground etc., in every village.

At present, the same idea should be worked out to build ‘Smart Village’ applying modern science and technology. The master plan should be prepared for the ‘Smart Village’ cluster (Block)’ consisting of a number of villages keeping in view various resources available in the Block. The following developmental programmes should get high priority in planning and their execution.

1. Water Harvesting and Supply to all : As water is one of the most important natural resources for better living, adequate facilities for harvesting rain water in ponds and tanks and other wetlands should be made to enrich the surface as well as ground water resources in the ‘Block’. Proper facilities should be developed to economically provide water for irrigation, pisci culture, social forestry, drinking and other domestic purposes.

2. Electricity and Cooking Gas supply : Necessary arrangements should be made to provide electricity and cooking gas to all families. The electricity should be mostly produced from renewable sources like biomass, sun, wind and small hydro power to supply energy for lighting the houses and streets, lifting water for irrigation, and other agricultural purposes, supplying water to agro industries, food storage units, recreation centres etc. uninterruptedly. Individually or collectively each family should have biogas generation facilities (anaerobic digestion of domestic and agricultural organic wastes). The biogas can be mostly used for cooking and the solid residue can be used as ‘manure’.

3. Public Health & Sanitation and Waste Management : In order to keep the rural people healthy, various facilities for keeping the village clean, providing sanitary latrines and making provision for immunization with special care for children, woman and senior citizens, have to be created. Provision should be made to convert the human excreta and organic wastes to manure and biogas. In this way the villagers can enjoy good health and produce more in their fertile lands.

4. Modern Agricultural Practices Preferably in a Cooperative Basis : The villagers should be motivated for producing food grains, vegetables, fruits etc., in the agricultural fields in a cooperative manner by using modern agricultural practices and using mostly organic manures and organic pesticides like Neem, Karanj etc. They should be encouraged to use water for irrigation purposes economically by adopting sprinkle and drip irrigation. More emphasis should be given to produce food grains, grams, vegetables etc., requiring less water. Necessary central facilities should be created for storing the agricultural products in order to minimize the wastage.

5. Better Housing for all : All the villagers should be advised to have their houses with facilities for better aeration and sun light in different rooms of the house with separate provision for kitchen and toilet. The domestic animals shed should be away from the living rooms. The family below the poverty level (BPL) should be helped by the Government under different schemes to have an environment friendly living place and suitable facilities for leading a comfortable life.

6. Agro Industries : In addition to adopting modern agricultural practices, the villagers should get more employment opportunities through establishment of various agro based industries. This will help in boosting the economy of the village. In order to have sufficient skilled man power to run various agro industries and service facilities, particularly the village youth and women should get vocational training at the training centre to be set up at a suitable site in the ‘Block’. Arrangements for retails and markets as well as exporting the agricultural and agro industries products outside the ‘Block’, should be made. Export market potential studies should be carried out by the local government to facilitate the quick sale of the products.

7. Efficient Public Transport System : In order to effect better mobility for the villagers, to various places, boys and girls for going to school etc., there should be good roads and better transport facilities.. Most of the transport system as far as possible should run with electrical, solar and bio-gas energy to avoid pollution.

8. Imparting General Education and Vocational Training : Arrangement should be made to have schools in each ‘Block’ for imparting basic education to all. The vocational training facility should be there so that those who do not want to go for higher education can get vocational training to earn their livelihood in various activities in the Block and also creating more self-help groups. In this way the productive capacity of all the villagers will grow.

9. Environment and Recreation Centres : In order to keep the village atmosphere healthy, it is essential to undertake social forestry in and around the villages with provision for play ground, recreation and library centres. Thus, social life of the villagers will improve considerably.

10. E-Governance and Citizens’ Participation : The formulation and implementation of various programmes of ‘Smart Village’ should be carried out by experts in respective fields in cooperation with village Panchayat, Block Development Office and representatives of the people in the Block, under the direct supervision of the District Collector or his representative. All these should be carried out utilizing the technology involved in ‘e-governance’. The industries in nearby areas should also be associated in financing and implementing some Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programmes towards the ‘Smart Village’.
It is very heartening to know that, in recent years, the Government of India in addition to having programmes for converting some of the urban areas to ‘Smart city’, is taking steps to formulate and implement programmes to build ‘Smart village’. As more than two third of our population live in villages, it should be proper for the government to give more importance to convert villages to ‘Smart Ones’ to make India “Smart’.

• Dr. P. K. Jena is former Director General, Council of Scientific & Industrial Research, India